Bleeding Slowly Toward Dusk: A Twilight Retelling
by NeedAMuse
Summary: A retelling of Twilight in which Bella (styled as Isobel) gets to be a character rather than a plot device, and Edward manages to avoid acting like a controlling and abusive predator.
1. Chapter 1

I'm not certain this can rightly be called "fan fiction" as I am not a particular fan of _Twilight_. At the same time, however, I am fascinated by it. How can one write as poorly as Stephanie Meyer (subject-verb-object, subject-verb-object, repeat _ad nauseum_ ), create a main character who is a plot device rather than a real character (impressively difficult to accomplish in first-person), make one's only _real_ character (Edward) into a terrifying creep - and yet manage to tell such a compellingly romantic story? Because, as a means of inspiring romantic feelings, _Twilight_ somehow _does_ succeed.

I don't know. I'm fascinated.

I owe a debt to a fanfic writer by the name of Alicorn for this. I very much enjoyed _Luminosity_ , however I felt that it inverted one of the primary mistakes made by Meyer - Alicorn's Bella was a real character, but Edward quickly devolved into a plot device. I have tried to avoid that trap with _both_ my leads - how well I have succeeded will be up to the reader to decide.

* * *

I.

Even inside the airport, I could feel the difference in the humidity of the air. I shivered in spite of the perfectly regulated temperature. This _still_ seemed like it might be a mistake of enormous proportions - but maybe that was part of the reason I'd done it.

Charlie, my dad, was waiting for me at the terminal exit. "Hi, Bells," he said, using his childhood nickname for me and causing my face to scrunch up in involuntary distaste. He planted a rough kiss on my hair and didn't offer a hug - no surprise there. Emotional situations always made him a little uncomfortable. I wondered if I had inherited that from him honestly or if I had managed to spend enough time in his company to pick it up through upbringing. Probably honestly - I had, after all, mostly been raised by my mom and she was impulsive in the extreme, always letting her feelings run away with her. I found her unspeakably exciting and terrifying all at once.

Actually - given what I knew of Charlie, that was very likely what he had felt around her, too. It was no wonder he wasn't entirely over her.

"Let's head down and grab your bags."

I nodded my assent, and followed him toward the baggage claim.

Outside it was cold and raining - depressing - and Charlie had, predictably, driven his police cruiser. That was uncomfortably conspicuous, but, unless things had changed drastically in the five months since I had last seen him, he didn't own another car.

I let him put my bags in the trunk and hurried into the car. I shouldn't have packed my new down coat in my checked baggage. It was hard to say why I had - maybe my last shred of denial before I actually arrived in the Pacific Northwest and faced the fact that cold and damp would be my new reality. In any case, I wasn't going to stand around in the freezing parking structure rooting through my bags until I found it. That sounded like a recipe for hypothermia.

Charlie shut the trunk and slid into the seat beside me. "How was the trip?" he asked as he backed out of the parking spot.

"Fine. Cramped. There was a screaming baby on both flights. You know - the usual."

I saw one corner of his mouth pull up. That was another thing we shared - our sense of humor. "You hungry?"

"Nah, I had two packages of peanuts and one of pretzels, plus a soda. I might not eat for a day or two."

That pulled an appreciative chuckle out of him. "We can stop wherever you want."

"I'm too tired to make decisions and I don't know Seattle very well. I'll trust your judgment."

"Alright, Bells."

There was nothing more of immediate importance to say, so we lapsed into companionable silence.

Over lunch he told me about the car he'd bought me. "Truck, actually," he corrected himself.

I was touched. I had mentioned wanting a car to him and asked for his help, since he knew infinitely more about the inner workings of engines and what could go wrong with them than I did. He had agreed to keep an eye out for me in his usual non-demonstrative way. This time, it seemed, his manner had concealed more even than it normally did.

"It's old," he warned me. "Probably older than you were thinking of. You remember Billy Black? He can't drive anymore, so I bought his truck from him."

I did remember Billy Black - bronze skin, sharp black eyes and long black hair - but not what he drove. I knew he and Charlie had worked on their cars together sometimes, though, because Charlie had mentioned it a few times. Between that and the fact that Billy had only gotten rid of the truck because he didn't need it anymore - well, it would be nice if repairs didn't drink up all the money I had made babysitting and editing my classmates' papers. With the expense of a car taken care of, I could think of several other things I wanted.

"Thanks, Dad," I told Charlie sincerely. "I really, really appreciate the gift."

"Sure," he muttered, embarrassed. "How was your Christmas?" he asked, changing the subject quickly.

I refrained from reminding him that I had called him Christmas day to go over precisely that information. "It was fine. Renee mostly got me cold-weather stuff for moving up here, of course, but we had fun shopping together."

"That's good. And how's Phil?" His voice as he asked the question barely hinted at his antipathy.

I pretended not to hear it at all. "He seems happy that Renee is going to be traveling with him, even though he's been trying not to make it obvious. Still trying a little too hard to make sure I like him, maybe. He gave me a boxed hardcover set of Isaac Asimov's Foundation trilogy for Christmas. It's really nice, but I'm not sure it was entirely within his budget, you know?"

Charlie nodded thoughtfully and we finished our lunch without further conversation.

I fell asleep in the car on the way to Forks, which, from my perspective, cut an hour and a half off of a four hour drive. Charlie was smiling at me almost wistfully when I woke up, but looked away quickly when he saw my eyes were open. I yawned and rubbed my eyes to give him a chance to get over his embarrassment, and then stretched as much as my seated position and seatbelt allowed. "I needed that," I told him.

"Yeah, figured," he replied a little more gruffly than usual.

I glanced out the window. The passing scenery was verdant but chilled by the misty rain that never seemed to stop falling around the Puget Sound. I wondered if I could find some way to make peace with that since I would be living here for at least a year and a half. For now, though, it just made me cold, even in the warmed interior of the car. I pulled my gaze back inside and focused on Charlie.

He had a look on his face that said he was thinking hard about something, but there was no use in trying to make him discuss anything before he was ready, so I concentrated on trying to find a radio station that worked out here in the middle of nowhere and waited. "You know, Bells," he said after a few minutes, "there's no college in Forks. Not even a community college."

"I'm aware of that," I assured him. I had done my research before suggesting that I come live with him. Thoroughly.

"You won't be able to graduate early."

I felt a fresh stab of disappointment but shrugged philosophically. "It was only going to be half a year anyway. That means coming to live with you only sets back my plans...what? Five months, maybe? It's fine." I glanced out the window again so that Charlie wouldn't read my true feelings in my face. It wasn't so much the loss of early graduation that depressed me - the truth was that I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, career-wise, and so going to college early seemed unlikely to gain me anything of value. It was more the incipient suffocating boredom. Forks High School did not have AP classes, a program for gifted students, or ties with any colleges where such students could take accelerated courses.

I dredged up a smile for Charlie's sake. "I'll have lots of free periods. Maybe I'll get started on some writing of my own, or something." My teachers and professors had always praised both my creative and academic writing, but I had never tried to sit down and write something not explicitly for class. The philosopher Soren Kierkegaard had said that idleness was necessary not only for creative endeavors, but for true humanity. Maybe some idleness would turn out to be exactly what I needed.

The light was fading fast as we arrived in Forks - another aspect of the northern climate that I had forgotten about. Though the twilight lingered sweetly during the summer, the extra-short winter days more than compensated for that benefit. Charlie's house - our house, now - was exactly as I remembered. Charlie helped me take my bags upstairs to my room, and then left me alone to settle in. I put away my clothes and what books fit on the small shelf attached to my desk. I hadn't brought many, but several still ended up stacked on top of my nightstand. That was one thing I would like to buy with my saved car money: another shelf. Then maybe my mom could be persuaded to send me a couple more boxes of the the books I had left at home. Small as the room was, there was certainly space for a shelf. I never had bothered to decorate much.

I came downstairs after I had finished unpacking and Charlie took me out to the garage to show me the truck he'd bought for me. It was, he informed me, from the late 50s or early 60s and in good working order, though it could probably use a new paint job. I found the hulking, red, slightly rusted vehicle unexpectedly endearing. It reminded me of some character in a book: self-consciously shy, but too conspicuous to remain unnoticed - Boo from _To Kill a Mockingbird_ , perhaps.

Charlie gave me the key and opened the garage door so that I could take my new truck for a test drive. The engine roared immediately to life and I patted the dash sympathetically. "You're never going to blend in sounding like that," I told it. "But I'm sure you're very likable. I already like you."

It handled well considering that it was older than my parents and didn't have power steering. Billy seemed to have taken good care of it. "I'll take good care of you, too," I promised in a whisper before hopping out of the cab. Living with Charlie would help with that, and maybe I could spend some of my newly-acquired free time to learn to do some of the caring myself. I had never been interested in engines, but I had also never given them a shot. Coordination wasn't necessary for changing oil and all that, I didn't think. At least I hoped not.

"What do you think?" Charlie asked me, his nervousness showing in the tightness around his eyes.

I grinned at him. "It's the best. I love it - really. I guess it'll probably take more upkeep than something newer, but maybe you and I could work on that together. You know - so that I can take it with me when I go to college."

I could tell he was pleased, even though he just said, "Sure, Bells." Charlie and I shared plenty of personality traits, but not many interests. Learning how to take care of my truck might be worth it just for the father-daughter bonding possibilities.

"Now - should I ask what you have that I could make for dinner, or should I just assume I need to go to the store?"

"You don't have to cook," Charlie protested. "You've been traveling all day. We can order a pizza or something."

I waved that away. "Dad, I _like_ cooking." It was a good thing, too - or maybe I'd made a virtue of necessity. My mom also _liked_ cooking - unfortunately she wasn't much good at it. I let her help, but I had been orchestrating our shared meals since I was about ten. "What do you want to eat this week?" I asked him, leading the way into the house. Soup sounded like a good way to ward off the chill, and if I made a nice, big pot I wouldn't have to cook every night, and Charlie wouldn't worry about it as much.

Even if I hadn't liked cooking, it seemed like a good distraction for the evening. As much thought as I had given to the academics involved in changing schools, I had tried to avoid giving the social realities too much consideration. On the whole, I thought the change would mostly be positive. I only had a couple of people I considered friends back in Phoenix - girls who were also part of the accelerated program I had been enrolled in. They weren't profoundly deep relationships, mostly we talked about homework and commiserated over the fact that we all appeared to be invisible to the local male population, but I had found their companionship comforting. Though I had their emails and had promised to write, I didn't expect our rather tenuous ties to weather my move very well.

In Forks I would be more visible - much more visible. As anxiety-inducing as that thought was, it was also rather attractive. I knew very well that I was no beauty. The best that could be said of me was probably "pretty," and "generically pretty" would likely be more accurate. Brown hair, brown eyes, pale skin, passable features, average height, not overweight, but not model-thin, either - that basically summed me up. I had been practically invisible in Phoenix, occluded by prettier girls, louder girls, more socially graceful girls. It wasn't like I was angling to be the most popular person in school now that I was in Forks, but I thought I might not mind having a larger circle of friends and maybe even getting asked out on a date or two. I was a little wary of serious romance - as I was of most commitments and the feelings that led to them - but a few dates, maybe a casual relationship...that seemed like it might help me work up to the more serious kinds of relationships that usually began forming in college.

Other people couldn't be entirely planned for, though, and I didn't want to come across as stiff or artificial on my first day, so I was trying _really hard_ not to overthink the social stuff.

Charlie and I made up a list of groceries for the week, and I climbed into my truck again to do the shopping. Though Charlie offered to come along and help me, I knew there had to be some sporting event or other on TV that he was missing. Anyway, grocery shopping was hardly a two-person endeavor. I told him to relax and promised to be back soon.

It wasn't such a bad introduction to my new life in Forks. If I _was_ making a mistake, it wasn't the boring kind so far.


	2. Chapter 2

II.

Jean-Paul Sartre, I reflected, was both right and wrong when he made the observation _l'enfer, c'est les autres_ : Hell is other people. No, I corrected myself, he was right in the way he meant it - there is certainly no pleasure in seeing oneself reflected as an object in the consciousness of other minds - but the common misinterpretation was right, as well. Was there anything duller, more tedious or more banal than the human mind? After having nearly a century in which to contemplate the question, I could come up with nothing.

Today was what passed for an exciting day at Forks High School: a new student had arrived. I had seen, unwillingly, her image reflected in over a hundred minds, through more than a hundred pairs of eyes. Her utter unremarkability seemed to preclude such an obsession, and yet there it was, plain to see and hear in every mind that intruded upon my own.

 _Edward_.

I glanced at Alice, from whom the thought came. She was untroubled by reflections on the perfectly unexceptional Isobel Swan - all her attention was focused on Jasper.

 _How is he?_

He was on edge, his control hanging by - not a thread, not yet, but certainly by an uncomfortably slender cord. I always felt guilty intruding on the minds of my siblings, but sharing Jasper's thoughts was difficult for another reason. I felt the the thirst, too, and sharing his relatively uncontrolled desire served to heighten my own.

I cast my eyes toward the ceiling and rolled my shoulders - a covert shrug. How did she expect him to be?

This was a mistake, pushing his ability to manage his thirst, but they all knew I thought so and I had been overruled. Most of all, Jasper _wanted_ his control to be better - wanted it for his own sake, for the rest of our sakes, and most of all for Alice, because she wanted it so badly for him. A mistake, yes, but one made out of the best possible motives.

Except that it could all too easily end in a murder.

Alice sighed.

" _...the Cullens_."

Most of the time I tried desperately not to listen to what the human children around us were thinking - for my own sanity - but the sound of our name caught my attention. That was, after all, my primary contribution to our safety: monitoring what people were thinking and saying about us. I knew the mental voice: Jessica Stanley. She, like many other girls in many other schools who possessed more confidence than sense, had pursued me for a short time. I looked toward the table she was sharing with the Swan girl. That explained it, of course - the girl, being new, had asked about us.

Isobel Swan withdrew her gaze as soon as her eyes met mine, blushing faintly at getting caught staring.

Emmett noticed the direction of my gaze. "They filling in the new girl about us?" he asked, too low and fast for human ears to catch, but with the usual distinct note of good humor coloring his tone.

"Of course," I agreed, turning my eyes away, already bored.

"Any good tales of horror?" he wondered.

I tuned in to Jessica's mental voice once more and then shook my head. Humans as a source of even momentary entertainment was probably too much to hope for.

"That's no fun."

"I disagree," Rosalie said, deigning to join our conversation with a toss of her hair. "The less suspicion attached to us, the better. What does the new girl think?" she asked.

I focused on Jessica's table again. " _Edward Cullen_ ," she said in response to some question asked by the new girl.

"I have trig with her and she was in our gym class, though she didn't participate today," I heard Alice tell Jasper, Rosalie and Emmett. "She seems nice enough. Normal."

Boring, I supplied for Alice.

Jessica was recounting, in very general terms, my indifference to her and every other girl who had thrown herself at me since we arrived. I repressed a sigh. They had no idea how lucky they all were that I found them so entirely uninteresting. My mouth anywhere near a human's skin would end with him or her dead.

I turned my attention to the Swan girl, sitting beside Jessica, searching for her mental voice, and encountered - nothing. That was - strange. I looked up, caught off balance. The girl was still there, peeking at us more covertly and decorously now, though she still blushed when she saw me looking and realized she was, once again, caught. I wasn't going to judge her - I was staring right back, unabashed, trying to hear what she was thinking. But all I got was - silence.

Blankness.

It was as though she wasn't even there.

I felt a little tendril of unease snake its way through me, and concentrated harder, sorting through the voices at the table.

Jessica: _...not that pretty. I don't know why Mike is so obsessed…_

Lauren Mallory: _...just because she's new? Jesus Christ, even_ Edward Cullen _is staring at her now - this is so ridiculous…_

Ashley Dowling: _...if she was this popular back in Phoenix. She seems a little nerdy to me, but I guess she's kind of pretty, so maybe that…_

June Richardson: _...if we'll have government or gym together. Then maybe I'll actually get a chance to get a word or two in…_

Angela Weber: _...make sure to vacuum tonight so that Mom won't mind if I go study with them. Trig is a lot harder than I thought it would…_

There didn't seem to be anything wrong with my ability. I could hear every single person and every single inane thought at the table clearly - with the exception of Isobel Swan and her inane thoughts. My acute hearing could, however, pick out the sound of her voice when she leaned forward to talk to Jessica: "How old did you say they were?" It was low and unexpectedly velvety, though not as musical as any that belonged to my kind. Usually a person's mental voice sounded a great deal like his or her physical, but hearing the Swan girl's voice only confirmed the fact that I could not hear her thoughts at all.

"Well?" Rosalie asked with a hint of impatience.

"I don't know," I admitted, perplexed. "I can't - I can't seem to hear her."

Four pairs of eyes were instantly fixed on me. "What does that mean?" Rosalie demanded.

"I'm sure it's nothing," Alice put in, trying to sound reassuring, even though the thought of something being off about my ability gave her a stab of anxiety. She hated the thought of anything happening to hers.

"Her mind might be different from that of other humans," Jasper told me thoughtfully. He took his wife's hand as he sensed her fear, even though he couldn't know the precise cause. His thirst had, for the moment, been forgotten in favor of this puzzle. "Sometimes I come across someone I have more trouble influencing." The face of his maker - Maria - flashed through his thoughts.

"But you can always tell when someone is _there_ ," I argued. "She might as well not exist as far as my ability is concerned."

He shrugged. "It might simply be a matter of degrees."

"He's right," Emmett rumbled. "Anyway, it's stupid to worry about something when you don't have any information on it. Let's go to class. We'll figure it out later."

I heaved an exaggerated sigh but refrained from protesting further. Alice was first up from the table, walking to the garbage to dispose of her "lunch." I followed after her.

I had biology after lunch - a painfully tedious class taught by an entirely unimaginative instructor. As usual, I tuned him out. The only difference was that, this time, I wasn't counting down the minutes until I could go home and do something worthwhile. Instead I was considering the problem presented by Isobel Swan's silence.

Her individual silence didn't matter, of course - she was only human - and Jasper might be right. It could just be coincidence that I had never encountered anyone immune to my thought-reading abilities - or had never noticed if I had. But that was disturbing in itself. My family counted on me to let them know when trouble was headed our way. What if there were more people like the Swan girl out there? What if she became important at some point? Oh, it was entirely unlikely that she would, or that I wouldn't pick up on it from the minds of those close to her if she did. But it was a weakness - a point of potential failure - and I didn't like it.

I would simply have to find a way around the girl's baffling silence. A mere human mind was not capable of thwarting me.

My last class of the day was Spanish, which I shared with Emmett. I took my accustomed seat in front of him, acknowledging his mental greeting with a nod.

I had hardly settled into my chair when the Swan girl came through the door. Interesting. She immediately approached the teacher's desk, holding a slip of paper that presumably needed to be signed. I glanced around the room - the only empty seats in the room were next to me and Emmett. Humans might not consciously understand that we were dangerous, but their survival instincts still tended to hold them at a distance. The poor girl wasn't going to have a choice, though, and maybe it would prove to be a lucky opening for me. I would have the chance to probe her mind up close - perhaps even talk to her -

She came up the aisle towards me and I readied a charming smile. Best to start out on the right foot.

Then she stepped in front of the vent - her scent blew into my face -

It hit me like an avalanche of blazing, uncontrollable _need_ , that scent. There was no room for thought, no room for reason, no room for humanity, morality, integrity, or any other flimsy philosophical nothings. I was the predator and she was prey; I was the vampire and she was what I hunted.

My mouth and throat were on fire in a way I hadn't felt since I had turned. It was agony - more than agony - _need_ \- I _needed_ her blood, or - or - or - I knew I couldn't die, but it felt like I might. The world had narrowed to this - to me and to her. Her silent mind no longer mattered, because it soon would not exist. The other students in the room were nothing more than collateral damage.

Emmett's hand on my arm brought me back, minutely, from the brink of action. "Stop breathing," he hissed. He had seen my sudden tension and interpreted it correctly.

Of course, I realized - he was right. My lungs stilled - uncomfortable, but only mentally. Oxygen was of no use to my body, but breathing was an instinctive means of self-preservation.

It was instantly better, though I could recall the scent of her with perfectly clarity - could taste it, still, on the back of my tongue. My throat was still on fire, and I still _wanted_ \- I had never wanted anything so badly. Not life, not death, not _anything_.

"Not here," Emmett admonished me in a swift, low voice.

I glanced up at the girl, foolishly wanting to see the face of my tormentor, even though my expression was - well, it was not an acceptable expression to direct at a perfect stranger. I hated her. My anger was inexcusable and illogical, but, in that moment, I blamed her for everything. For her silence. For being here. For her scent - oh God, her scent! She had stopped moving and was pressed up against the desk where she had intended to sit, staring at me in abject terror. Her warm brown eyes were blank with fear and confusion.

Emmett's hand on my arm tightened. I tore my eyes away from her and tried to rearrange my expression into something more acceptable. "Mrs. Goff," my brother said, his voice perfectly regulated, "Edward hasn't been feeling very well today and I'm afraid he's sick. I'm going to take him home."

He pulled me to my feet before she could respond and marched me outside. Her assent drifted after us.

"Thank you," I gasped as he released me. I breathed in the cool, moist air in grateful gulps, as though it could wash away the memory of - her.

Emmett regarded me thoughtfully. "What was that?" he asked. "Jasper I would have expected something like that from. You? Not so much."

"Didn't you smell her?"

"Who? The Swan girl?" he asked. I nodded. "Sure. She smells good, just like any of them, only maybe a little better." He paused thoughtfully. "Why? Did you feel me noticing? Have you been spending too much time in Jasper's head?"

"This has nothing to do with him," I snapped. "She didn't smell 'maybe a little better' to me. She smelled - she smelled -" Words failed me.

"Oh," Emmett sighed. "Like that."

"It's happened to you?" I asked, surprised.

"Once - yeah." He remembered for me - a lonely road in the evening, a woman hanging up laundry outside her house, a playful breeze that came by at just the wrong moment...he hadn't even hesitated. He had taken her into his arms, his teeth finding her throat - warm, sweet blood spilling -

"Stop!" I groaned. It was too much. I could picture the Swan girl in the woman's place all too easily. Her blood would be - it would be -

"Is it like that?" Emmett asked.

"Worse," I assured him.

He spent a moment regarding me. "So what are you going to do? You could wait for her out here, or maybe at her house - that might be better -"

I found myself nodding, and then shuddered in horror. "No, no - this is wrong. All wrong. This isn't what I want." It wasn't - and it was. But it wasn't.

I had worked so _hard_ to get to this point. In my mind, I could see Carlisle - his sadness, his disappointment. He would forgive me - of course he would forgive me - but I didn't want his forgiveness. I wanted his _pride_ and his _trust_. I didn't want to be someone who needed to be forgiven - not again - not ever again -

"Edward?" Emmett prompted me after a long moment of silence.

"I'm not going to kill her." My voice was thick with regret and longing. "I'm going - away. I'm going to go talk to Carlisle, and then I'm - going. Tell the others."

He spent a moment studying my face. "If that's what you think you need to do," he said at last with a shrug. "Good luck."

"Thank you," I muttered, and then I was off, running - running - running as though it could save my life. Or hers - and my pride and sense of who I was along with it.


	3. Chapter 3

III.

It was such a shocking way to end a relatively pleasant first day.

I had gotten up early, intending to be at school on time, even though my first two periods were free and I had permission not to arrive until ten each morning. It seemed to me that I did my best work in the morning, so the thought of being able to take my time getting ready while thinking over anything that needed to be done, and then maybe _getting_ some of it done, was immensely appealing. Still - the first day I knew there would be some kind of paperwork. No reason not to be on time. Maybe I would even have the chance to meet some people.

I left in good time and headed to the school. The main office was helpfully labeled as such, so I parked my truck and went in. The secretary, Mrs. Cope, had everything I needed ready for me - my class schedule, a map to help me avoid getting lost, with the lot where students parked highlighted, and forms for my teachers to sign. "How do you like Forks so far?" she asked me - a question that I expected to hear repeated _ad infinitum_. I hadn't actually _seen_ much of the population of Forks - which was really what she was asking about - so I sidestepped the question slightly and answered: "It's great to spend more time with my dad."

It was both true and the kind of thing that adults liked hearing kids say - especially teenagers, I imagined - and her smile accordingly warmed up a few degrees. "I know he's awfully glad to have you here." I knew it too, so I nodded. "I think you're set," she went on in a more businesslike tone. "Just bring the signed slips back here at the end of the day."

"Okay," I agreed, taking the pile of papers from her and heading back out to my car to figure out where I was _supposed_ to park.

Forks High School was a series of small buildings, each large enough to contain no more than two classrooms at the very most, set at short distances from each other with concrete paths running between. Who had chosen this design and what their motivation had been baffled me; a single building was a much more efficient use of space. If the student population grew significantly, they would run out of room for placing new buildings in fairly short order. Not only that, but, given how much it rained in Forks, forcing students to go outside after every single class seemed cruel. The paths weren't even covered! The only explanation I could come up with was that it had somehow been less expensive to build this way.

I spent the first two hours of school making the acquaintance of the librarian and the library. It was pretty dismal even by school library standards and I didn't see myself spending a lot of time there, even though Mrs. Johnson, the librarian, seemed competent and friendly. After a few minutes, I pulled out my laptop and started writing emails to my mom and the friends I had left behind in Phoenix.

Several people came in while I was waiting for my first class of the day. I smiled at each of them, and they either stared or smiled tentatively in return, but all of them were either in too much of a hurry or not interested enough to actually say anything to me. Not the most promising start, but maybe it was weird that I was hanging out in the library. No one else seemed to.

My first class was trigonometry. I took several deep breaths before leaving the library building, confirmed which building I needed on my class schedule, and then went out into the rain.

The teacher, Mr. Varner, earned my eternal enmity by forcing me to introduce myself to the class before directing me to a seat next to a rather pretty girl with dark, curly hair. "Hi," she said with a bright smile as I sat down. "I'm Jessica Stanley."

I tried not to allow my sigh of relief to be audible. School would have been so much more difficult if all the cliques had remained stubbornly closed to a newcomer like me. "Hi, Jessica, I'm -" I broke off with a laugh. "Well, I guess you heard."

She deigned to laugh at my rather feeble joke, and there were several smiles from the people around us, none of whom were making any effort to appear as though they weren't listening in. "I would have known anyway - everyone has been talking about your move for _weeks_ -"

It sounded like she would have gone on, but Mr. Varner cleared his throat pointedly at us and we had no choice but to turn our attention back to the front of the room.

The lesson was dull - math was one subject in which I had _not_ taken accelerated courses, mostly because it bored me nearly to tears - but Jessica offered to walk with me to my next class. "I have gym this period, too," she said, sounding pleased.

"Hey, wait up!" someone called behind us. We paused and turned to see an attractive boy whose face seemed vaguely familiar to me hurrying to catch up with us.

Jessica's smile seemed to have gotten caught somewhere between pleased and stricken. "Mike," she said as he joined us.

"Hey, Jessica," he replied, but his eyes were fixed on me. "Mike Newton," he said, holding out his hand as he introduced himself.

I took it somewhat gingerly, made wary by the not-entirely-happy look on Jessica's face. Either she had a crush on this Mike guy, in which case having his attention would not endear me to her, or she didn't much care for him, which would be problematic in the opposite way. I had wanted to see about dating, but I _didn't_ want to get drawn into drama between other people, especially this early. At the moment Mike was just being friendly, but his eyes perused me with an appreciation that was maybe a little overly familiar.

"I have Spanish right now," Mike said, indicating the direction opposite the one in which we were heading with a jerk of his head, "but I wanted to say hi and introduce myself. Maybe I'll join you guys for lunch or something."

Jessica's face lit up and I knew instantly which way my suspicions should be tending. "Great. We'll see you at lunch."

She hadn't actually _asked_ me to eat with her, but I was happy to let it be assumed. It was infinitely better than eating alone on my first day. "See you," I echoed, and he turned to leave with a wave.

"Anyway…" Jessica said, trying and failing to sound nonchalant. "What were we talking about?"

"The weather or something, probably," I replied with a shrug. "I don't think you've asked if I like Forks yet."

She looked momentarily startled, but then grinned. "You're going to get a lot of that."

"It's the perfect conversation opener," I agreed. "And, luckily, I like Forks pretty well so far, minus the rain and how early it gets dark."

"Ugh, I know - I hate this time of year. It's the worst right after Christmas, because at least that's, like, cheerful. You definitely decided to move at the wrong time."

I laughed and agreed, and we continued walking, chatting easily.

We parted at the door to the locker room and I went to find the gym teacher. He signed my slip for Mrs. Cope and gave me my new uniform, but didn't force me to change and take part in the game of volleyball that was already forming up. I was grateful for that mercy. In Phoenix, only underclassmen had to take gym and getting through even that much had felt like one of the trials of Hercules from my perspective. I was as graceless as a newborn foal and bruised as easily as a piece of overripe fruit. I had tried to seriously talk my mom into letting me see the doctor about the latter - maybe I had some kind of medical condition - but she had assured me I was overreacting, and the research I had done on the internet had more or less agreed with her. I had - reluctantly - dropped it.

I would have to come up with reasons to avoid participating as much as possible - maybe find a way to sprain an ankle or a wrist or something.

In the meantime, I settled myself on the bleachers to watch the game.

That was the first time I noticed any of _them_.

There were two students who stood out from all the others in the class. They moved like dancers and looked like Hollywood actors who had, inexplicably, come to Forks to practice acting like high school students - maybe for a part in a teen movie. _Probably_ for a part in a teen movie - those were notoriously awful, and they didn't seem to be especially _good_ actors. No one looked enthused to be in school, but the expressions of _those_ two were more than just bored - they were _languid_ , like either or both might expire of ennui at any moment.

The pair - a tiny girl, even shorter than Jessica, and a tall, well-muscled boy - looked nothing alike, and yet were also clearly of the same _type_. Both were so ghostly pale that they made me look suntanned in comparison. Both had dark circles under their eyes, as though chronically exhausted. And both were utterly, devastatingly beautiful. The fact that the girl's hair was nearly black and the boy's a reddish brown that flared to bronze in the light, the fact that their actual features bore no particular commonalities of shape - these things seemed entirely irrelevant.

They moved in a small bubble of space - people shifted uncomfortably out of the way as they approached. I wondered about that and decided I would ask Jessica about it - and about them - at lunch.

I met Jessica outside the locker room when she was done changing, and we walked to the cafeteria together. It was hard not to notice how many people were looking at us - at me, I supposed - or that Jessica was enjoying the attention. That was fine, I was happy to funnel some attention her way, but I hoped it didn't mean that she would get tired of me when other people stopped being interested. I hadn't considered the risk inherent in beginning friendships for entirely shallow reasons. Then again, she had every right to wonder if I would get tired of her when I had a sufficiently large circle of friends. Maybe it evened out.

Jessica and I got lunch and then joined a table full of her friends, and she made introductions - Ashley, Lauren, June and Angela. They smiled and seemed nice enough. Mike joined us not long after, and a few of his friends opted to sit with us as well-either because Mike was or because they wanted a chance to stare at the new girl. Under normal circumstances, I wasn't terribly fond of being stared at, but mostly this seemed to be the eager, friendly sort of the staring that preceded actual conversation. I thought I could deal with that, at least for a few days. Eventually some of my newness had to wear off.

Several people wondered how I liked Forks - as predicted - so I gave them my two usual talking points - the weather and the shortness of the winter days - with the flattering addition that everyone I had met so far seemed to be nice and eager to make me feel welcome. No one at the table appeared dissatisfied by the answer, and the topic of the weather was taken up with relish since it was accessible and the difference between Forks and Phoenix was so stark. I answered a few questions about Arizona, and then gave Mike half my attention as he described what he remembered of the climate when he was growing up in California. With the other half I took a moment to glance around the room, which had filled considerably since my arrival.

I spotted the Hollywood student impostors from gym seated together at a table in the corner along with three others of their kind. Seeing the five of them together reinforced the strangeness of both the peculiarities of appearance that all of them shared - their incredible beauty not the least significant of those - and the almost studied indifference with which they seemed to regard their fellow students and the world at large. They were all staring off into space in different directions, looking apathetic enough to make _me_ , all the way across the room, feel vaguely world-weary.

I nudged Jessica at the next break in the conversation. "Who are _they_?" I asked, nodding in the direction of the silent table.

"Oh - those are the Cullens," she replied. "Or, well, Emmett, Alice and Edward are Cullens. The two blondes are Rosalie and Jasper Hale."

"Have they always lived here?" I had only spent summers with Charlie before, other than the rare Christmas. I knew Billy Black's children, Rachel and Rebecca - as well as their brother, whose name wasn't coming to me immediately - but they lived on the reservation, and none of his other fishing buddies had children around my age. That meant that I really hadn't had the chance to get to know any of my peers in Forks proper prior to moving here.

"No," Jessica answered with a laugh, as though I should have known without asking.

The boy I had watched in gym looked up, his eyes finding me unerringly, and I blushed as I looked away.

"They just moved here a couple of years ago from somewhere in Alaska," Jessica went on, not noticing the byplay between me and whichever Cullen had caught me staring. "Their father is a doctor. He and his wife adopted all of them. The Hales actually are brother and sister, though."

"That's - very generous." And strange. They had _all_ been adopted? Didn't adoptions cost a lot of money? Tens of thousands of dollars? And why did they all look so strikingly _similar_? It was true that none of them really looked _related_ \- not even the Hale siblings - but - how did they all just _happen_ to turn out pale and unspeakably beautiful? That was _really_ pushing the bounds of probability.

Jessica sniffed, interrupting my torrent of internal speculation. "Well, Mrs. Cullen can't have her own children, and the Hales are her niece and nephew, or something."

I didn't know how that made it less generous. There were plenty of relatives who _wouldn't_ step up to take care orphaned or abandoned children. I supposed it did reduce the amount the Cullens must have spent in making their adoptions, though, since courts often looked for guardians among relatives. That meant, if the last figures I had heard named for a typical adoption were anywhere near correct, they had only spent somewhere in the range of a hundred thousand dollars, rather than the much more unlikely hundred and _fifty_ thousand.

Right.

I glanced up at them again, looking for a solution to the problem. They were all very well-dressed, I supposed. Maybe their parents were independently wealthy?

That was another thing, though - they didn't really _dress_ like high school students. Or not real ones. They dressed like 25-year-olds playing high school students on TV. And - come to think of it - they sort of looked like 25-year-olds...at least, the Hales and the big guy sitting next to the female Hale - what had Jessica called her? - did. The two who had been in my gym class looked more realistically like adolescents.

"Who's the one with the bronze hair? The one who's in gym with us?" I asked Jessica.

"Edward Cullen," she answered.

He looked up once more, almost as though he had heard her say his name, and managed to catch me peeking again. I felt myself blush even more hotly and pulled my eyes away resolutely, determined not to watch them anymore.

"He's gorgeous, of course," Jessica went on, "but don't bother. They're all _together_ , for one thing - Emmett and Rosalie, Jasper and Alice." Her tone was scandalized, and I wondered whether it was because they lived together or because of the vaguely incestuous overtones her statement implied. Maybe Dr. and Mrs. Cullen hadn't gotten them when they were young, though, so they hadn't been raised a siblings. I supposed that might lower the price associated with the adoptions, and it would have given the Cullens a chance to select their children. Maybe, I thought, amused, they were part of some kind of cult that intended to breed an entire race of stunningly lovely, vitamin D deficient people. "As for Edward," Jessica continued over the thoughts flitting across my mind, "apparently the girls here aren't good-looking enough to interest him." She tossed her hair with an offended sniff.

No sour grapes there. If he had rejected Jessica, though, that was one point in the "cult of pale pretty people" column. Her attractively olive skin was much too dark to fit the visible criteria of the imaginary sect I had created. Then again, mine was significantly lighter than hers, and I wouldn't be pale enough, either. Where _had_ the Cullens found all of them?

"How old did you say they were?" I asked Jessica.

"Jasper, Rosalie and Emmett are seniors. Alice and Edward are juniors, like us."

That was a lie - Edward and Alice were clearly nothing like us. And I found it _very_ difficult to believe that the other three were no older than eighteen - especially the guy who looked like he belonged in the WWE and had to be, by process of elimination, Emmett. From what I knew of biology, teenage boys really weren't _capable_ of being that massive. Too busy growing still. I supposed if he had been held back a year - or five -

The bell for the end of lunch rang, and I shook my head, putting it aside. The Cullens and their oddities weren't any of my business. If I wanted to let the mystery they presented keep me awake at night, I would have to wait for, you know, _night_. Right now I had things to do.

June, one of Jessica's friends, had Government next with me, and offered to walk me to class. I accepted gratefully and we set out through the rain, which had lightened to a drizzle. "Was your school in Phoenix much bigger than this one?" she asked me, and we began a conversation about some of the differences between going to a large versus a small school.

We sat together during class, and afterward she directed me toward the room where Spanish was held, though she unfortunately had gym last period. I thanked her and headed the direction she had indicated. Somehow, though, I missed the building - maybe because the misty rain was starting to look a lot more like fog - and had to backtrack. I wasn't quite late, but the room was basically full when I entered. Angela, another of Jessica's friends, sat on one side of the room, but there were no free seats anywhere near her. She gave me a little wave and a slightly apologetic smile as I handed the paper that needed to be signed to the teacher.

Angela wasn't the only face I recognized - Edward and Emmett Cullen also shared the class with me. In fact, the only open seats were right next to the two of them. That fit what I had observed in gym and at lunch - the little bubble of space that seemed to follow them everywhere. Well, I had no choice but to breach it. I hoped they didn't mind too much. Maybe everyone in Forks avoided them for reasons like that shocked bit of gossip Jessica had shared, but based on everything else I had seen and heard, I thought it was more likely that they preferred that little separation. After all, Jessica - and presumably other girls - hadn't considered their situation scandalous enough to avoid trying to get Edward's attention.

The teacher, Mrs. Goff, returned the office slip to me and directed me to a seat next to Edward with a nod. I picked my way back to the third row with care, trying not to trip over anything - harder for me than the average person. Emmett and Edward seemed to be the only people in the class _not_ watching me, which was more or less fine with me. The concentrated attention of an entire room of people was a little overwhelming, and I really didn't want to fall flat on my face in front of all of them…

All of a sudden, though, just as the rest of the class seemed to be losing interest, Edward _was_ looking at me - more than looking - _glaring_ , his black eyes filled with rage and hate. I found myself shrinking back involuntarily against the desk I had only just managed to reach, utterly terrified, perhaps as much by the senselessness of the look as by its intensity.

Before I could gather my thoughts, his brother had dragged him out of his seat, made some excuse to Mrs. Goff about his health, and was hurrying him out the door.

I released a shaky breath and collapsed into my chair. The person in front of me was watching me curiously - he had apparently noticed Edward's death glare - but it seemed to have escaped the attention of everyone else. What was _that_? I wondered silently. Why had it been directed at _me_? We hadn't even spoken. Was it possible it hadn't been? Was I remembering or interpreting it incorrectly?

As the fog of shock gradually cleared from my mind, it occurred to me to wonder how Emmett had even known something was wrong with Edward. He had been sitting behind him - hadn't been in a position to see his face. That was...strange. Maybe not as strange as a boy I hadn't said a single word to looking at me like - like I was some kind of depraved criminal, but still strange.

Just like practically everything else about the family.

Now I _really_ needed to avoid gym as much as I could, and from here on out I would make sure to be one of the first people to Spanish, so that I could sit on the opposite side of the room with Angela. If Edward kept glaring at me, surely Angela would notice if I sat right next to her. Then I would have a witness if I needed to bring it up to the administration. Maybe I would ask Charlie about the Cullens, too - get the perspective of the local police chief and prime the pump a little in case things escalated and I needed to get _him_ involved.

These all sounded like sensible plans, so I scribbled a few notes to myself in my notebook. I didn't think I would forget, but writing it down made it all feel more concrete, made me feel more in control, and helped me work through the fear I had just experienced and my natural anxiety over future meetings with Edward Cullen.

I sighed and tried to pay attention to Mrs. Goff. And my first day had been going so well, too…


	4. Chapter 4

IV.

The long night was finally lightening with the promise of dawn. I lay back in the snow, staring at the dimming stars, brooding and remembering.

" _Go,"_ Carlisle had agreed, handing me his keys. " _I'll explain it to the others. Go, and let her live."_

I missed him. I missed all of them, even the sometimes difficult Rosalie and the always-on-edge Jasper. I missed Alice and Esme more than either of them and more than the good-natured Emmett, and I missed Carlisle most of all. The separation hurt, and, I knew, hurt them no less. And for what? One foolish human girl?

I could picture her face with perfect clarity - through other eyes, I had seen it in repose, in concentration, smiling politely, laughing, grinning impishly. But the expression I remembered most clearly, the memory I couldn't seem to shake, was the one I had seen with my own eyes, the one I had seen at that moment when I had transfixed her with a hate-filled glare, and she had stared back, all uncomprehending.

That was the moment at which I had once again become a monster.

The transformation hadn't been complete, thank God, but still...still...It hurt to remember her that way, with my face, twisted to that of a demon, reflected in the warm brown velvet of her eyes. Yes, I had spared her life, but the fact that it had even been in danger -

"Hello, Tanya," I greeted my friend and hostess as she flitted across the snow toward me, interrupting the same train of thought that had left me restless ever since my arrival. She was only one of my friends and hostesses, actually, but I had always been closer to her than either Irina or Kate. We were both musical, for one thing. She had never been intimidated by my natural austerity, for another. She - much like Alice, only more so - had a cheerful zest for life that I found refreshing.

She had also been trying to get me into her bed for at least three decades.

 _It's too cold to be out here sulking_ , she thought at me, knowing full well that the cold bothered me no more than it did her.

"Am I sulking?" I asked her, both amused and offended by the description.

Her face entered my field of view as she examined me minutely. "Looks like it to me," she declared.

"I'm sorry that I haven't been a very good guest," I apologized. "My rudeness was inexcusable."

Her mental dismissal of that was wordless. _I just wish you'd tell me what's going on. Maybe we could help._

"No," I told her gently. "There's no help for it. It's - it's my shame, and mine alone."

I heard her thinking that over, examining my words from every possible angle. _You aren't staying,_ she thought at me sadly, taking note of the use of the past tense in my apology.

It hadn't occurred to me that I was getting ready to leave, but I realized as soon as she thought it that I really couldn't stay. "Being here isn't helping," I sighed. I had run away to avoid becoming a monster, but the very act of fleeing was an acknowledgment of my monstrosity and my powerlessness in the face of it.

If I wanted to be the kind of son to make Carlisle proud, if I wanted to follow his example, I had to face and overcome my thirst, not run from it. I wanted so badly to be that kind of man.

Tanya must have seen some of my resolve on my face. _I sort of thought...with you coming back alone like this…_ She sighed.

She had thought I was finally taking her up on her proposition.

Thoughtless. "I'm sorry, Tanya. I wasn't thinking of anyone else when I left, and I couldn't think of anywhere else to go." I hadn't hurt her _badly_ \- it was just a game to her - but I had wounded her pride a little.

 _No, no_ , she thought with another sigh, _I'm glad you thought of us first when you needed someone outside your family._ She gave me a rueful grin. "I was just rather looking forward to it…"

Her thoughts took a distinctly carnal turn, and I coughed discreetly to remind her that I was still there, forced to listen in. "Libertine," I teased her gently in response to her embarrassed and _almost_ honestly contrite mental apology.

"Oh well," she sighed, "you might as well get going. I'll tell the other two goodbye for you, if you like."

She was already off before I could reply, but I called my thanks after her. Then I ran back to where I had parked, and gratefully turned my face towards home.


	5. Chapter 5

A note: I have been posting 1-2 chapters daily in the belief that getting the first five up quickly is probably worthwhile for increasing reader engagement. From here on out, however, I will be updating weekly. As of this posting, I am working about 15 chapters ahead and would like to, as much as possible, maintain that buffer.

* * *

V.

Edward Cullen was not at school the next day, or the next, or the rest of the week.

I stuck to my plans anyway, because it was always possible that he really _was_ out sick, or that something had happened to someone he was close to, or that he was going through some ritual necessary to his participation in the Pale Pretty People cult, or - anything, really. If any of that was the case, it was also possible that he hadn't been glaring at me _specifically_ , but rather expressing an emotion that just happened to be directed my way through chance.

Possible, but I wasn't inclined to toy with my physical safety, and hostile glaring might portend something much, much worse.

So I stuck with my plans. First, I talked to Charlie. He gave me a ringing endorsement of the Cullens in general, though, praising Dr. Cullen's skills in his profession, the generosity he had demonstrated by bringing them to a small town that couldn't possibly pay him well, the uprightness and lack of hooliganism displayed by all five of the "children" - a word Charlie managed to use without irony, which made me suspect that he hadn't spent much time looking at them - and their devotion to family values, indicated in the frequent camping trips they all took together. The lengthy lecture wasn't exactly directed at me - it sounded more like an outpouring of a sentiment that he had been holding on to for a _while_. I guessed that Jessica's outraged gossip was being repeated, perhaps with significantly more vitriol, throughout the town.

Since Edward Cullen hadn't harmed me in any palpable way, I forbore telling Charlie about my encounter with him - at least for the moment.

In gym I participated in playing volleyball on Tuesday in order to display the resulting bruises up and down my forearms to my teacher on Wednesday. He examined them with something approaching disbelief, but couldn't deny the evidence in front of his eyes. "You could spend all period running laps," he told me in a vaguely threatening tone.

"I was thinking yoga or maybe aerobics," I replied quickly. I could probably find an aerobics video that included lots of floor exercises-also one of the benefits of yoga - and having a mat underneath me meant something yielding to fall onto if - if? more like _when_ \- I lost my balance while trying to do anything that required standing upright.

"If you know yoga, maybe you could lead the class one or two days a week. Some of the other girls might want to join you on a more regular basis…"

My preference instantly changed to aerobics. I was in no shape to lead anyone in anything physical. If some people wanted to join me doing aerobics, though, I wouldn't mind that.

In any case, the gym teacher let me sit out again since they were still playing volleyball and my forearms were in no shape for further abuse. By Thursday, after lots of research online, I had acquired a good yoga mat and a well-reviewed aerobics DVD, and my alternate course of study commenced.

I was no less successful with my campaign to gain an ally in Spanish by becoming friends with Angela. It turned out, in fact, that Angela was potentially my favorite person at school. She was friendly but self-contained, respectful of others' opinions but not unduly influenced by them, and her sense of humor, though shy, was also sharply observant. Plus it turned out that we both liked to read. Our tastes diverged wildly in a number of places, but we at least both enjoyed 18th, 19th and early 20th century literature, and there was enough contained within those two and half centuries to last anyone a lifetime. She also liked to cook, probably more than I did, and was likely better at it, too. I promised to teach her how to make Mexican dishes like tamales and enchiladas from scratch in return for a course on the best use of arcane ingredients like balsamic vinegar and truffle oil.

The only Cullen-related incident all week occurred in gym on Tuesday, and was actually a reassuringly positive interaction. During the game, Tyler Crowley spiked a ball right at me. He hit it so hard and fast that I had no time to manage my instinctive reaction, which was to cringe away. Before it could connect with my head, though, Alice Cullen managed to interpose herself between me and it, setting it up perfectly so that Ben Cheney could pass to April Howard, and she could spike it right back across the net. "Thanks," I told Alice fervently.

"No problem at all," she chirped in response, dancing back to her place on the court.

At least _all_ the Cullens didn't appear to be crazy and horrible. It was a good thing, too, because I realized that same day that I actually had trig with Alice. I just hadn't noticed the first day because I had been so embarrassed over having to introduce myself to the whole class.

I spent my weekend hanging out with Jessica, June, Ashley, Lauren and Angela, mostly doing homework, but also fitting in some gossip and nail-painting, and trading emails with my mom. As predicted, my correspondence with my friends in Phoenix had already flagged. Charlie seemed both pleased and somewhat alarmed when I invited Angela over for a few hours on Sunday to show her how to make tortillas - tortillas being, of course, the foundation of many different Mexican dishes. When we were finished we threw together some stuff for tacos since it was easy and there wasn't much point in making tortillas without eating them.

All in all, I was feeling pretty good about my move to Forks by the time school started on Monday.

My mood was improved when it started to snow just as I made it to school. I spent a couple of moments in the car just watching the fluffy white flakes fall, enraptured. I had never seen snow before - real snow, up close. I climbed out of my truck and stuck out my gloved hand, grinning like an idiot as the flakes collected in my palm.

Second period let out and students flooded outside to take advantage of the quickly-accumulating snow. There were shouts of laughter as several snowball fights formed up. It looked like everyone was having fun, but I still gave all of them a wide berth as I made my way toward trig. I wasn't certain I would be as fond of the snow if it was pressed into an icy ball and hurtling toward my face.

Jessica greeted me at the door of our classroom. "Check it out," she said with a nod toward the area in front of us. I realized that Mike and Tyler were engaged in a battle to the - well, probably not to the death, but certainly to the who-could-get-the-other-soaked-and-mildly-bruised first.

A stray shot hit the wall near my head, and I opted to go inside.

There was even more snow on the way to gym, and even more hurtling missiles. Jessica laughed at me as I readied my notebook as a means of defense, but thankfully didn't try to hit me herself. "I'm very sensitive to the cold and damp, you know," I informed her with mock-resentment.

My good mood soured a bit as we entered the gym and I realized there wasn't just one Hollywood-imposter-student present today - Edward Cullen was back from wherever he had spent the last week. I had to pause and take a deep breath, reminding myself of the steps I had taken to make sure that I wouldn't have to get close to him and he wouldn't have a chance to harm me. Though I had thought that my fear was under control - resolved, even - my stomach tied up in knots when I actually saw him.

It wasn't just that I was afraid of him, though I was also that, I decided as I rolled out my yoga mat. His dislike had the potential to be _embarrassing_. I didn't think I was _too_ bad at navigating social situations, but Edward was the most attractive person of the opposite sex I had ever encountered. His ire made me self-conscious in a way that it would not have had he been ugly - or even just _less_ attractive.

Thankfully I _didn't_ need to have anything to do with him, and, though he gave me a few curious looks that I couldn't entirely make sense of, he didn't increase my alarm by attempting to approach me.

That didn't stop me from still feeling tense and anxious when lunch came around. I took a piece of fruit and a bottle of soda - for the fizziness - but didn't think I was likely to want anything else. Mike noticed. "You feeling okay?" he asked.

"Just not hungry," I said as nonchalantly as I could. "I ate breakfast later than usual."

I wasn't usually a very good liar, but he nodded and didn't pursue it.

Though I was determined to ignore the Cullens, particularly Edward, as much as possible, I couldn't help sneaking _one_ look at him as my friends and I took our seats at our usual table - just to make sure there hadn't been a return of his earlier attitude.

The Cullens seemed to be enjoying the snow as much as everyone else. The boys all had rapidly-melting slush in their hair, and Emmett and Jasper were shaking their heads at the girls, attempting to spray them. Rosalie had picked up her tray to use as a shield, and it looked like Alice was trying to kick Jasper's shins under the table. All of them were laughing.

They were even more beautiful when they laughed, especially Edward.

"Ummm...Isobel?" Jessica said. I realized that my "one look" had turned into an extended stare.

"Huh?" I asked stupidly.

"What are you looking at?" she asked, trying to follow the direction of my gaze. "The Cullens?"

"No," I lied, feeling myself blushing. I couldn't come up with a plausible alternative. "What did you want to know?"

She giggled and leaned in conspiratorially. "Edward is staring at you."

"Is he?"

"Mm-hmmm," she said in a teasing voice.

I imagined she would have told me if he was staring daggers at me. "Could you stop looking at him, please?" I was still trying to stick to my "ignore him" plan, and it didn't help if Jessica was giving me a play-by-play on what he was doing. "What were you asking me before?"

She returned her eyes to me at last. "I just wanted to know how likely you were to join the snowball fight."

I realized that Mike was deep in battle plans with most of the rest of the table. They were discussing tactics and potential rivals.

"Not a chance," I told Jessica with a little laugh.

She looked pleased, and I realized that she saw it as an opportunity to get closer to Mike - and take his attention away from me. I heartily wished her well.

My friends spent the rest of the period laying plans, but they all turned out to be for nothing. The snow had turned to rain during lunch and their ammunition was in the process of melting away when we stepped outside. There was a collective groan from most of the student body. I was secretly a bit relieved - I had never driven in the snow before. I wondered if I could talk Charlie into taking me somewhere for some lessons in a more controlled environment.

June and I headed for Government and were joined halfway there by Tyler. He made a welcome addition to our conversation, at least for me - June was bitterly disappointed by the vanishing snow, and I couldn't possibly match her feelings on the matter. Tyler, on the other hand, seemed to lament the loss every bit as much as she did.

After Government came the moment of truth - my Spanish class with Edward. Of course, I had staked out my claim to a seat next to Angela on the other side of the room from him pretty well, and I was decently early when I left the Government classroom on top of it, but my emotions only seemed to remember that Spanish was where Edward had frightened me before. I was nervous.

I tried not to look it though - Tyler had joined me and he was the one who had seen Edward glare at me that first day. Maybe it would have been smarter to talk to someone about it, especially someone who had actually seen it happen, but he hadn't _done_ anything - not really - and I wasn't keen on beginning rumors that might be entirely baseless. From the way Charlie talked, it sounded like the Cullens had enough gossip to contend with. I wasn't above taking some interest in the scandals that Jessica was routinely able to discuss with surprising familiarity, but I was much less comfortable becoming the source of one myself.

Angela made it to the door to the Spanish classroom at the same time Tyler and I did. He opened the door for us with exaggerated gallantry and then followed us over to where we had regularly started sitting, taking the seat behind me. "You're in trigonometry, in the same class as Jessica, right?" Angela asked as soon as we were settled. I had chosen my chair so that I could face her and still keep an eye on the door. Most of all, I didn't want Edward's arrival to take me by surprise.

"Yeah," I agreed. "Third period."

"How are you doing on the latest assignment?" Mr. Varner was the only upper division math teacher, which meant that everyone taking the same class, no matter the period, had the same homework. I hoped he was at least a little smarter about tests, otherwise it was probably really easy for people to cheat.

I took a moment to consider her question. "I think I understand it, though it's so deadly boring that I haven't even finished half of it yet."

Angela made a face. "Sounds like you're doing better than I am. Jessica tried to explain it to me, but she's one of those people who just _gets_ math, you know? She isn't much good at explaining _why_ she gets it."

"You could ask me for help," Tyler broke in with what he probably thought was a seductive smile. "Both of you."

"Are you taking trig?" Angela asked, looking surprised.

"No."

I laughed as she mimed hitting him.

"The homework isn't due until Wednesday, so maybe we could take lunch tomorrow to try working on it," I offered. "I don't know if I can explain it better than Jessica - I'm not too good at math - but I can give it a shot."

"Thanks, Isobel," Angela sighed, relief coloring her tone.

I thought that was probably a little premature. Math was definitely my weakest subject.

The door had been opening regularly throughout our short conversation as the classroom began to fill. My stomach knotted a little more tightly each time it did, though I tried my best to force myself to relax. Finally, finally it opened and Edward Cullen came in with his brother. I looked away from him quickly, trying to remember how long I had looked at other people coming in so that I could make it seem like perfectly normal interest - just taking note of people coming into the room. Totally routine - almost, in fact, involuntary. I had time to notice before I pulled my gaze away, though, that his eyes found me unerringly. Not to glare, thank goodness, not this time, even if it was still strange that he was looking at me at all. Maybe he was sorry.

I wasn't interested enough in a potential apology to risk getting close enough to him to hear it.

"You know," Tyler told us thoughtfully, "I could use some tutoring."

"In what?" Angela asked.

"Spanish, for one," he replied, looking at me.

I held up my hand to stop whatever he was thinking. "I'm not that good at foreign languages. Besides, it's mostly memorization and you don't need help with that, you just need to do it. If you want an English paper edited, we can talk. If you're having trouble with biology or chemistry, I might be able to do something. Anything else - _find_ someone else."

He grinned, unabashed. "I'll let you know the next time I have an English paper due."

I smiled back. "My going rate is two dollars per _typed_ page. Since you're a friend, I'll reduce it to one. I don't deal with anything handwritten."

"You didn't say you _charged_ ," he groaned. Then he added: "You're not charging Angela for help with math."

"I'm hoping that having someone to work with will make doing the work more palatable. We're both getting something out of it. Besides, I'm not at all confident in my math skills, but I _know_ I can edit a paper and do it _well_."

He grumbled but the bell rang for the start of class, cutting off any further protests. I snuck one more look at Edward.

He was still looking at me.

That was weird - and maybe not much better than his initial death-stare if it came to it. I was going to have to figure out what to do about him if he didn't stop it soon. Preferably _without_ direct confrontation.


	6. Chapter 6

Note: A week between updates started to feel like an eternity. I'm averaging roughly two chapters a week in writing, and even if I get bogged down by finals in late April, I've got 7 1/2 weeks of material at updating twice a week. Even if I stopped writing entirely right now that would easily see me through the end of the semester.

* * *

VI.

"It's going to be fine," Alice muttered in what she meant to be a soothing tone. Conversely, it only served to irritate and put me more on edge.

"You already said that," I tried to remind her _without_ snapping.

Of the two classes I shared with Isobel Swan, gym had more potential for danger. I couldn't - and didn't want to - imagine how she could smell any better, but the sight of any human running - heart pounding, gasping for air - was enough to stir my predatory instincts if I wasn't careful. How lucky for both of us that she had found a way to keep herself out of my way so effectively.

"She's very clumsy, even by human standards," Alice said with a slight smile, remembering, for my benefit, the way she had saved the girl from a volleyball to the head the week before.

Even better, then, that she was thoroughly out of my way. If she managed to so much as scrape her knee, I couldn't vouch for my control. It was almost as though she had foreseen the problem, though. Not only was she at the other end of the gym doing exercises that seemed to mostly require her to be either on her back or in a sitting position, she had a yoga mat under her as well. No running, and even I would have difficulty picking out her particular heartbeat from among the other fifteen or so in the class.

I had been listening in all morning to see if the girl had mentioned the way I had looked at her to anyone else. So far it didn't seem as though she had, which I found somewhat curious. She didn't seem especially shy, and, when humans had an otherwise inexplicable experience, it was the next thing to instinct for them to compare it to those of others in order to find a reasonable way to account for it. Isobel Swan did not appear to have done so. I could not fathom her motives, which made her silent thoughts considerably more troublesome.

Perhaps she had brought it up with her father. I would look for an excuse to run into him and listen to his opinion of me.

As for Isobel's feelings, her body language was as blank as her mind. She hardly glanced at me all period, and when she did it might well have been by accident.

I thought I might have more luck at lunch, when she would presumably sit and talk with her friends.

The snow slowed me down after gym let out. I had intended to arrive at the cafeteria quickly, but got sidetracked by Emmett and Jasper taking advantage of my preoccupation to repeatedly attack me with balls of slush. Everyone else seemed to be similarly engaged, however, so I was still one of the first into the cafeteria and one of the first through line. I carried my tray of props to our usual table and sat. Alice joined me a few moments later, followed by the rest of our siblings.

Then, I listened.

Jessica Stanley's mind was not that difficult to pick out, and she was walking with Isobel. They entered the cafeteria and got in line, followed by several of their friends. All of them were talking about the snow and none, for the moment, was paying much attention to the Swan girl. She did not join their conversation, but instead held herself a little apart, looking thoughtful.

That was useless. What was she thinking? She didn't look toward our table - didn't seem to be looking at anything in particular. Why wasn't she talking with her friends? Did she not like the snow? Was she thinking of me? Her homework? I had never wanted access to the full banality of a human mind so much in my entire existence.

She didn't order much food - just an orange and a bottle of soda. Mike Newton remarked on it. I switched to his mind for a moment since he was actually paying attention to her. " _You feeling okay?"_ he asked. His thoughts were centered on her as well: _She looks a little pale, I think. Maybe she's sick. Maybe that's why she didn't want to play in the snow._

I found I didn't like the way he thought of her - not the words, but the possessive intent that colored them.

" _Just not hungry,"_ Isobel answered. I could pick out her voice through the din of other conversations in the room, as well as hearing it in Mike's mind. She sounded casual. Perhaps she sounded _too_ casual, like she was working at it. She went on, giving a fuller explanation: " _I ate breakfast later than usual."_ That made sense - her first two periods were free, and she didn't get to school until nearly ten most mornings. Humans typically ate every four to six hours, so it was possible that not enough time had passed for her to be hungry again. Was it the truth, though? I couldn't tell.

Mike accepted her explanation with a nod and went back to his previous conversation. I switched back to Jessica's mind.

 _...mean that she doesn't like him, or does she just not like the snow? She is from Arizona. It must seem really cold to her. Ugh, why is he so fixated on her? Maybe I should just ask her if she likes him. I think she would tell me the truth. Wouldn't…_

Alice nudged me in the ribs, calling my attention, mercifully, from the flood of Jessica's self-absorbed thoughts, triggered by Mike's interest in Isobel's health. I couldn't believe I was getting caught up in all this ridiculous high school drama. "She's about to look this way," Alice told us in a low voice. "Act like we're natural."

She swiftly followed up this admonition by flinging handfuls of slush at Jasper and Emmett. Both stared at her, startled, for the briefest moment - and then Emmett grinned evilly and began shaking his head, sending water and melting snow out in every direction from his dripping wet hair. Jasper, catching on, grabbed Alice's wrist and pulled her closer so that he could do the same, only in a more targeted manner. Rose put up her tray as a defense, half-seriously threatening Emmett's well-being if he got her clothes wet or muddy, while Alice tried to free herself by playfully kicking at Jasper under the table.

I saw in her mind how she had set this up, giving the Swan girl a view of us as a perfectly happy family. _I thought she should get the chance to see what you look like when you're smiling_ , she thought for my benefit.

I felt my expression become pained.

 _Hello, Earth to Isobel!_ I heard Jessica think. Then, out loud: " _What are you looking at?"_ Her eyes fell on us. " _The Cullens?"_

Isobel's cheeks were red. " _No,"_ she lied. " _Um. What did you want to know?"_

I found my gaze seeking her out across the room. Her face was still the most delectable color, but I didn't want to eat her. Not now. I wanted to know what she was thinking.

" _Edward is staring at you_ ," Jessica giggled, leaning in.

Isobel's cheeks turned a brighter shade of red. " _Is he?"_ she asked, _obviously_ trying to sound casual now.

" _Mm-hmmm_ ," Jessica replied, drawing out the second syllable suggestively. _He couldn't possibly go for her, of course, even if he is acting weird - but if she's fixated on_ him _she won't be interested in Mike…_

" _Could you stop looking at him, please?"_ Isobel requested fervently. Jessica didn't comply until she added, " _What were you asking me before?"_

The conversation returned to snowball fights, even though I could hear, by the sound of rain on the roof of the building, that there would be no more chances for playing in the snow today. I tried to tune out Jessica's jealous and petty thoughts while still using her eyes to get a close-up view of Isobel's every expression. If I couldn't hear her thoughts directly, my only chance was going to be deciphering her expressions...

I switched to June Richardson's mind when the group broke up to go to their classes, heading to mechanically to my own biology class without needing to give it much attention. June's thoughts were all on her disappointment at the loss of the snow. Isobel, though she made polite sounds of agreement, clearly didn't share her feelings. I wondered about that, too - was Jessica right? Did she not like the cold? Or was there some other reason for her lack of regret?

Tyler Crowley joined the two girls before they made it to their classroom. Though he was talking with June, I could see him watching Isobel. I switched to his mind, suspicious.

 _...can tell she's smart just by talking with her. What was that word she just used? "Prerogative"? What does that even_ mean _? I guess Police Chief Swan_ wasn't _just bragging when he told everyone his daughter was in some kind of fast track program in Phoenix. She's not too bad looking, either - really pretty, actually. A pretty girl who can also help you with your homework? I can see why Mike is interested. If he doesn't make a move soon…_

I fled back to June's mind with an irritated sigh as Tyler began studying Isobel's figure more closely, trying to imagine what she might look like undressed. Had she caught the interest of _every_ boy in the school? I didn't need to think back to answer that - of course she had. At first I had been tempted to put the obsession down to simple novelty. Now, though that might be where it had started, I was willing to be persuaded that there was something unusually compelling about Isobel Swan. Something even beyond her horrifyingly delicious scent.

Biology ended at last, and I faced going to Spanish with a sense of trepidation. Alice had already foreseen for me that I was unlikely to be forced to sit next to Isobel today. My hope was that perhaps I could get used to - and learn to resist - her scent in stages. If not...I would have to leave again. The alternative didn't bear thinking on.

Emmett met me a short distance from the Spanish room. _Ready?_ he thought at me.

"As ready as I'm ever likely to be," I muttered in return. I felt unexpectedly jittery - excited, almost. I was looking forward to seeing Isobel Swan's face and studying her expressions with my own eyes, even though I was also afraid of what I might do to her.

Isobel was sitting with Tyler - the wretch - and Angela, on the opposite side of the room from where Emmett and I generally sat. That was good. She looked at me as I came in, but pulled her gaze away immediately, her cheeks going a little pink. That answered one question: she definitely remembered my behavior from the week before. I wished I could apologize to her, but I didn't dare get that close.

I tried to content myself with watching.

"You know," Tyler was saying, "I could use some tutoring."

He was ostensibly speaking to both girls, by he rarely looked away from Isobel. "With what?" Angela asked him. His gaze flickered to her, but then right back to the Swan girl.

"Spanish, for one," he answered. _I could also use some tutoring in more physical stuff, but maybe I would be_ doing _the tutoring in that case._ This close, I had trouble tuning out his disgusting thoughts.

Isobel didn't seem impressed, stopping him before he could go on. "I'm not that good at foreign languages. Besides, it's mostly memorization and you don't need help with that, you just need to do it. If you want an English paper edited, we can talk. If you're having trouble with biology or chemistry, I might be able to do something. Anything else - _find_ someone else." Her expression was stern and I couldn't quite keep a smirk from curving my lips.

Angela was glancing quickly between her two friends. _Does Tyler like Isobel…? Uh oh, Lauren is going to be angry. I'm not sure Isobel likes him like that...but still, Lauren won't be happy at all. Maybe I should mention it to Isobel? Or maybe I should stay out of it…_

"I'll let you know the next time I have an English paper due." Tyler was grinning suggestively. I wanted desperately to backhand him into the nearest wall. I didn't _think_ it would kill him. Probably.

Isobel smiled in return, but she looked wicked. "My going rate is two dollars per _typed_ page," she informed him. "Since you're a friend, I'll reduce it to one. I don't deal with anything handwritten."

It was all I could do to avoid laughing. Tyler's thoughts were instantly full of chagrin. "You didn't say you _charged_ ," he groaned. Then he realized she hadn't said anything to Angela about money, and his tone became sulky. "You're not charging Angela for help with math." _I'm trying to_ flirt _not hire a tutor!_ he complained mentally.

Isobel tossed her hair, sending the thinnest tendril of her delicious scent in my direction. Even that put me immediately on edge, but I stopped breathing and successfully fought down the urge to leap on her and do the unthinkable. "I'm hoping that having someone to work with will make doing the work more palatable," she told Tyler. "We're both getting something out of it. Besides, I'm not at all confident in my math skills, but I _know_ I can edit a paper and do it _well_." Her tone dared him to argue with her. She was, I realized, unusually confident for an adolescent - unburdened by false humility. At least in some things.

Angela was still observing the byplay between the two. _I think Tyler had better stick to Lauren_ , she decided, and I agreed wholeheartedly. _Isobel is..._ Her thoughts became wordless - a spinning series of impressions of how Isobel approached interpersonal relationships. I realized that, at least through Angela's interpretation, she was actually being almost as flirtatious as Tyler. Her style was just more confrontational than he was accustomed to - more confrontational than _I_ was accustomed to. _I think she might be too much for him_ , Angela concluded. This, too, I agreed with. She was _entirely_ too much for him - too much of a good thing that he could neither understand nor appreciate.

The bell rang, cutting off Tyler's incoherent and discontented grumbling. Unexpectedly, Isobel's gaze slid my direction, but she immediately looked away again when she saw me watching her, a little frown on her face. I realized I might be making her uncomfortable - and then further understood that her feelings about it _mattered_ to me. Usually I didn't pay much attention to whether I was violating human customs, or consider whether my violations might make them uneasy. Under normal circumstances, my violations were prompted by good reasons, and I made humans uncomfortable simply by existing.

This was...different.

I shook my head and pulled my eyes away from her. My only reason besides personal curiosity for keeping a direct eye on her had to do with my family's safety, and I was not making us safer if I was making her feel disproportionately _unsafe_. I was only making it more likely that she would report me to someone - her father, perhaps - as some kind of stalker.

Besides that undeniable truth, I did not _want_ her to feel unsafe. I supposed that it was an overreaction to my own horror at how tempting I found her. She _was_ unsafe - at least somewhat unsafe - while I was anywhere nearby, a fact which I regretted immensely. If she did not realize that she was in danger, however, it was easier for me to pretend to myself that I had everything under control. Humans, after all, were not terribly perceptive. If I was being so obvious about the hazard I posed that one of them picked up on it consciously, I was very much out of control.

I _desperately_ did not want to be out of control.

I spent the rest of class deliberately breathing through my nose, forcing myself to deal with every stray thread of her scent that drifted my way. Pain was nothing, not truly - I could not be harmed by it, or by much of anything. I would learn to accept this pain without doing anything to attempt to alleviate it.

I _would_.

In spite of my resolve - and the fact that the Swan girl was still alive when class let out - I was rigid with tension by the end of the hour. I let her leave first, but gave myself the relief of not breathing as she passed me. Would it get better? I had no idea. Had I been suddenly exposed to her the way I had been that first day - I was not certain I would have handled it with any more grace. I might even have leapt at her immediately, before Emmett could move to stop me, unhindered, this time, by any confusion.

 _So?_ Emmett thought at me as I finally rose.

I shook my head. I didn't know.

I went hunting with Carlisle that night. I knew it didn't matter - I wasn't thirsty - but I felt the need to _do_ something, to take some kind of precaution, however worthless it might be.

We ran through the forest together, Carlisle reflecting wordlessly on my return.

"I missed you," I explained to him, trying to give him answers to his doubts.

"And we missed you," he replied gently - kindly - with the infinite compassion that was so much a part of him. "And yet…" He remembered my face the afternoon I had come to him, remembered the anguish in my voice. "I've talked with Charlie Swan from time to time in the course of my work. I believe losing his daughter would kill him."

Not one life at stake, then, but two.

 _She'll be gone soon_ , Carlisle thought, half at me and half a simple reflection. "Two years - perhaps less - isn't much time."

"I know," I agreed. I did - and yet, I didn't want to leave.

"We'll come with you, if that is what it takes," he told me evenly.

"I don't want to do that to you - to them." I thought of Rosalie. She would be furious if we had to move.

"You have moved without complaint for the others. They will do the same for you." He cast a suddenly amused glance at me. "Or, if not without complaint, at least without _lingering_ resentment."

My face stretched into something like a smile, but Rosalie's temper couldn't divert me, not truly. "I don't want to be that person - that _thing_ \- that - that monster."

Carlisle let considered my statement. _Will you put a girl's life in danger for that? For pride?_ he thought at me at last - gently again, tenderly.

I closed my eyes briefly. I shouldn't. I _shouldn't_. But I wanted to.

I wrestled with myself for several minutes, following Carlisle. He let me think, keeping his own thoughts as much to himself as possible. Of everyone I knew, he was the best at controlling his own mind. He could let his thoughts go and simply _be_. In those moments, his company was as restful for me as being alone, yet still profoundly supportive.

It was that support that helped me know what I needed to do. "No," I whispered. "My pride will not endanger her life."

His pride _in_ me bloomed, and if I had been human my eyes would have filled with grateful tears. For this I thought I could endure anything. Even -

I winced away from the memory of Isobel Swan's face. I had stopped being angry at her long since - had really only been angry in that single, shocked moment - but the thought of her was still somehow painful. "Give me a day," I told Carlisle. "I want to tell Esme myself, and we should set up the story. Tell the school I've been accepted to some prestigious academy somewhere. It will explain last week's absence, too."

He considered the request. _Very well_ , he agreed. _Then let us hunt_.

There was a small herd of deer ahead - unappetizing at the best of times, currently almost nauseating. I hadn't thought I could feel nausea. Even so, I dropped into a hunting crouch with a sigh, and let the scent of my chosen prey pull me forward.


	7. Chapter 7

VII.

The problem of what to do about Edward - if anything - plagued me all night, even in my dreams.

I no longer had a clear idea of whether I was overreacting or not. Or - no, that was inaccurate. I'd never had a _clear_ idea of whether I was overreacting. How could I? I didn't feel like I could reasonably assess potential _risk_ anymore, though.

A hostile glare was a clear enough signal - it meant danger in no uncertain terms - but Edward's staring all day had merely been...curious? Frustrated? Maybe both those things. It was still a little creepy, but it wasn't _clear_. When I added it to that first day, though, I got...I didn't know what. I still didn't know whether his hostility actually had been directed at me, or if I had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

There were also still a lot of little things about the whole family that bugged me - things that just didn't fit. Those made me feel more edgy, too. People who violated small social norms _blatantly_ couldn't necessarily be trusted not to violate larger social norms, such as not attacking other people. The fact that the whole family didn't quite fit, put together with Edward's stares, added up to something I was deeply uncomfortable with.

On the other side of the equation, though, was everything Charlie had told me about them. He, being the police chief, was in an unusually good position to know whether or not people were likely to be dangerous. His sky-high opinion of the Cullens likely meant as much - or nearly as much - as their little violations of ultimately amoral social norms.

In the end, Edward had not hurt me. To do something preemptively that was very likely to hurt him sat poorly with me.

Perhaps ignoring him was not the right course of action. I did not want him to stare at me. Maybe I should start by _asking_ him not to stare at me. If he violated a clearly stated preference, _then_ I would have information to work from.

The thought of walking up and talking to him made me nervous, though, not so much because I thought he might hurt me - I could do it in a perfectly public area, after all - but because - because - oh, I hated to admit it, even to myself. It was because he was _so_ attractive. Just looking at him from across a _room_ made me feel like half of my mental processing power was suddenly engaged in handling his absurd degree of hotness. I wasn't wholly certain that I would be capable of using actual words strung together into real sentences when dealing with him directly.

My only other option, though, was getting a message to him through one of his siblings - a considerably less certain means of communication. Besides, they were _all_ stunning, and though I was more affected by male beauty than female - I was reasonably certain I would fall between zero and one on the Kinsey Scale - Rosalie had a haughty elegance that would probably leave me just as tongue-tied as the more (for me) sexually-charged attractiveness of her brothers. The only one I would feel even remotely comfortable speaking with was Alice, and that was only true in a very relative sense.

If I was going to talk to Edward, I was going to have to do it myself.

I spent the evening going back and forth on when I should do it, whether I should give him a little more time to lose interest in me, etc. Charlie noticed my preoccupation and I had to pretend I was having more trouble with trig than I actually was. I hadn't reached any decisions by the time I went to bed, and my dreams were filled with various scenarios of everything that could go wrong. Some of them were silly, like realizing that I wasn't wearing pants sometime in the midst of our conversation, but others were terrifying, like him suddenly attacking me while I discovered that I was just as suddenly paralyzed.

It wasn't the most restful night.

My morning wasn't much better. The rain and melted snow from the night before had frozen, leaving the streets covered in ice. I had been nervous about driving in _snow_. How much worse was ice? I was about to find out because I couldn't even wait to see if it melted. Angela had texted me the night before, interrupting my angst, and asked if I would be willing to get to school on time to help her with trig. She had gone to the trouble of emailing an essay to her English teacher early in return for permission to skip class. She offered, generously, to cancel when she saw the weather, but I felt too guilty to take her up on it.

Thanks to my restless night I ended up leaving late. I tossed my backpack into my truck with a huff of irritation, and then took a deep breath, steadying myself for facing the ice. "You'll help me, right?" I asked my truck, patting the dash. "If I die and you get a new owner, I promise they won't love you half as much as I do."

I started it up and backed carefully out of the driveway.

Maybe, I thought as I accelerated a little and then braked carefully, the truck had somehow heard me. I actually didn't seem to be sliding badly at all. That was no reason to be reckless, of course, but I thought I could probably make it to school after all.

I took it slow, increasing my five minute drive to something like eight minutes, but didn't really have any trouble. Still playing it safe, I parked away from everyone else, and then got out of the cab, my feet immediately trying to slide out from under me as they touched the iced-over pavement. It was definitely slippery enough! I wasn't quite certain how I was going to make it into the school, but at least for the first few steps I could hold onto my truck. "Thank you, my darling," I told it in a whisper, clinging to its side.

I stopped at the back tires, suddenly realizing that it hadn't been some kind of benevolent car spirit keeping me safe on the ice - at least, not unless cars could put on their own chains. Charlie, I surmised, must have gotten up early to do it for me. I felt a tender smile curving my lips. It was just like him to do something like that and then not take any kind of credit.

A shout pulled me from my contemplation of my father's virtues. It was followed by several more - a scream - and the sound of tires rolling much too quickly for safety over the ice. I looked up, trying to find out what the commotion was.

There was a blur of motion and something slammed into me. I hit the ground hard, caught completely off guard. My head snapped back and smacked against the icy pavement. I saw stars, but it wasn't over yet. I struggled to understand as strong hands gripped me, pulling me underneath my truck.


	8. Chapter 8

VIII.

The ride to school was a quiet one. Alice had seen my decision to go and was too torn between sorrow and anger to want to speak to me. She had respected my request not to let anyone else know, though. I would tell Esme in the evening, which would give us the whole night, and maybe even part of tomorrow, to say our goodbyes.

I had only just come back. She was going to be so unhappy.

In my mind, Esme's face kept shifting to another one, though. I knew Isobel Swan would never look heartbroken because I was leaving. I knew Isobel Swan's warm brown eyes - and brown was such a drab word for such a compelling color - would never fill with tears because of anything I did or didn't do. And that was part of the reason that I was leaving, so that she would never, ever be hurt by me in any conceivable way.

It was the right thing to do.

I pulled into our usual parking spot and we all got out.

Even though I was leaving - even though it was irrevocably decided - I couldn't quite rob myself of an extra look at her, so I found an excuse to loiter by the car while Jasper, Rosalie and Emmett headed to class. The pavement, I realized, was icy. Glancing around the parking lot, I could see students driving and walking with exaggerated care. I had been too preoccupied to notice, and my perfectly tuned coordination had compensated while I was driving without any conscious input from me.

Alice stayed beside me, debating whether or not to try reasoning with me one more time.

"Alice," I sighed. She looked away, almost as hurt as we both knew Esme would be.

 _You're the only one like me_ , she complained. _No one else understands - not even Jazz_.

"What's two years? It won't be very long." Her lower lip pushed out slightly in an adorable pout. I was lying - two years was more than long enough for me to miss her terribly. But several spots away, Isobel was parking her truck. I didn't want to kill her, and I didn't want it more than I wanted to remain with Alice, or Esme, or any of them. The only one capable of making me waver right now - was Isobel herself. It was pathetic how fixated on this one human girl I had become, but it was probably natural. After nearly a century of nothing ever really changing, discovering a truly new experience - two truly new experiences, in fact, both embodied within the same person - was bound to attract and hold my interest, even to the point of obsession. "Will you help me?" I asked Alice in my most beguiling tone. "I need to see how the day is likely to play out."

She blew an annoyed breath out through her nose, but cast her mind forward, searching my future. Images spun through her head, strangely hazy - much less clear than normal. That was odd. It was as though the next several hours depended on some pivotal decision that had not yet been made. I heard Isobel's door slam shut and instantly a single picture began to solidify, becoming increasingly clear each second.

Isobel - crushed and mangled, her blood staining the front of a car - and me - bent over her corpse - red-eyed -

I gasped and took a step away from Alice.

"What are you waiting for?" she demanded, her voice shrill. "Go!"

I was in motion before her words had entirely registered. I kept my mind tightly bound to hers, monitoring the way every action I took changed the future she saw. Tyler Crowley - that wretched bastard - was driving inadvisably fast. In a moment he would hit a patch of ice as he attempted to make the turn into the parking lot. His car would head straight for Isobel as he tried and failed to regain control. Isobel needed to not be where he _would_ be.

I wasn't running at full speed. It wasn't enough of an emergency to require that kind of exposure. I modulated my pace to Alice's vision, keeping just on the right side of fast enough. An Olympic sprinter probably could have matched my speed - a gold medalist would have outstripped me. With all eyes focused on Tyler's now-careening Sentra, it was enough not to draw undue attention.

Isobel had only just noticed that something was wrong. She looked up from her back tire, where she had been examining something - and then I slammed into her, knocking her to the ground. I heard her head crack against the pavement. I had hit her a little harder than intended, but there was no time. Quickly sorting through the possibilities and matching them to the outcomes Alice saw, I wrapped my arm around her and pulled her underneath her truck. There was a very, very small chance that Tyler would manage to hit it in such a way as to put her in danger as it moved, but his little Sentra was much less massive than her hulking iron monstrosity. As far as I could tell, it was the safest place for her to be.

His car hit hers with a crunch and a screech as I wrapped my body around hers, trying to offer her some small protection should the worst come to pass. The tires lifted an inch - and then the whole thing dropped again, less than half a foot from where it had been resting before.

Safe. She was safe.

The whole world seemed to hang silent as Isobel craned her neck to look up at me. "Edward," she said, sounding dazed. I loved the way she said my name, even when she was confused with the aftermath of trauma. Her brow furrowed. "My head."

Outside, beyond our unlikely shelter, the screaming began. Isobel's eyes abruptly filled with tears. "Ow."

Suddenly the tears spilled over and she was sobbing uncontrollably. I pulled her closer and she took two handfuls of my shirt, hanging on like her life depended on it. She was so warm and soft, and she felt so right nestled against me.

I could have stayed there for eternity.

That, alas, was not an option. So far I had avoided breathing, but we needed to make our presence known before anyone tried to move Tyler's car. If she remained hysterical, I would have to breathe in order to speak. I ran one hand up her back and probed her head with the most delicate touch. My fingers came away dry. No blood. That was good.

I took a small, experimental breath through my mouth. God. This close I could _taste_ her. My throat was instantly on fire, but for once I had no particular desire to alleviate my pain. I was happy to burn if it meant that she lived.

"Isobel," I whispered - but she was already wiping her eyes.

"Sorry," she gulped. "I don't know - I'm sorry."

"It's just shock," I reassured her. "Hey!" I called out as I heard Mr. Varner - the only teacher on the scene so far - mention trying to back Tyler's car up once they got him out. If the two vehicles were entangled in any way, moving his might put Isobel in danger again. I should have warned them not to move Tyler, either, but I was severely out of charity with him at the moment. As far as I could tell from the way he felt, he didn't have any symptoms of a severe spinal injury, so pulling him out probably wouldn't do irrevocable damage.

I wrapped my arm around Isobel's waist and edged us both out from under the truck. "Hey!" I called again. "We're under here!"

This time I was heard. Someone pointed and in a moment there were a dozen hands reaching to help us out and off the ground. Isobel took one, but I ignored them. "Don't let Isobel stand," I ordered. "She hit her head and she might be dizzy."

She looked at me, her eyes still wide, and slowly sank back toward the ground from the kneeling position she had managed to attain. "Hold on," I said, shrugging out of my coat. I spread it on the ground so that she wouldn't have to sit directly on the ice. It wasn't as though I would mind the cold.

I spared a moment for relief. She was safe. We were _both_ safe. I had saved her.

In the distance I heard sirens.

Angela and Jessica managed to push through the group surrounding us at that moment. In general I wasn't much impressed with Jessica, but both girls radiated considerable concern for their friend. They both got down beside her, ignoring the ice, and tried, simultaneously, to question, reassure and get reassurance from her. Isobel looked back and forth between them, bewildered at first, but then with growing humor. It hardly seemed possible, but it looked like her shock was already fading. "I don't think I'm going to be able to help you study this morning," she told Angela, breaking through their babble. "Maybe they'll let me come back to school and we'll be able to spend lunch on it."

I crossed my arms but forebore commenting. After the kind of head injury I knew she had sustained, even if the x-rays came back fine, she definitely wasn't coming back to school today.

Angela was quick to assure her that it didn't matter.

 _Edward_. My head swiveled toward Alice. Emmett, Jasper and Rosalie had rejoined her, all of them watching me with expressions of disbelief. Rosalie was annoyed, Emmett confused and incredulous, and Jasper - I growled in a low undertone, knowing that he would be able to hear it even though no one human could. Jasper was trying to decide whether I was drawing too much attention to us, and whether he ought to simply eliminate Isobel. _You had no choice_ , Alice went on thinking at me. _If you hadn't…_

If I hadn't - yes, there would be no question of exposure. It would be thoroughly accomplished.

 _Go with her - talk to Carlisle,_ she suggested. _I'm sure he'll support your decision._

The first ambulance arrived, followed closely by a second. Tyler was taken away in the first. The paramedics from the second - both of whom I recognized - approached us a moment later. One of them - Brett Warner - greeted me. "You involved in this, kid?"

I gave a sharp nod. "I'm fine, though," I added. "Isobel, however," I indicated her with a jerk of my head, "might have a concussion. I didn't have time to be gentle when I pulled her out of the way, and she hit her head."

"Hmmm. Did she retain consciousness?"

"Yes," I answered. "No blood, either, and she's been talking with her friends without trouble."

"Good signs," he said, pulling out a little flashlight and going to check the reaction of her pupils.

The other paramedic, Peter Ames, tried to insist on examining me, but I promised to let Carlisle look me over when we got to the hospital, and he let it go.

In the distance another set of sirens was approaching, and I could dimly feel a tide of panic riding alongside them. I had wanted a chance to find out what Isobel had told her father about me - if anything. It seemed I was about to get it.


	9. Chapter 9

IX.

I made a face as the paramedic - he had introduced himself as Brett - fastened the neck-brace he had retrieved for me from the ambulance. "Is this really necessary?" I complained.

He grinned at me. "Probably not," he allowed, "but it's better to be safe."

I appreciated his honesty, at least.

I appreciated the stretcher he forced me onto somewhat less. I had been sitting up for more than five minutes and had no hint of dizziness yet. Besides, no one was making _Edward_ get on a stretcher.

Charlie pulled up just as they were loading me into the back of the ambulance. "Bells!" he called, jumping out of his cruiser, his voice wild with fear.

"Dad!" I held my hand out to him and turned to Brett. "Can I talk to him for a second?"

"Just a second," he agreed.

Charlie grabbed my outstretched hand. "I'm fine, Dad," I told him. "I just hit my head."

"Bells - " he repeated, and then seemed at a loss for how to go on. Emotional situations were hard for him - and for me. This one was easier for me, though, since I at least knew I was more or less okay, and additionally had a request for him.

"Dad, can you take my backpack and make sure my truck gets home? Maybe you could look her over this afternoon - I want to make sure she's okay, too. She - and Edward - probably saved my life."

"Of course, Bells." He reached out to touch my hair and then seemed to realize that he didn't know _where_ I had hit my head and pulled his hand back.

"You can follow us to the hospital," Brett told him. "It really is mostly precautionary."

He let go of my hand. "I'll do that."

Brett finished loading me into the ambulance, and his partner shut the doors. Before they closed I heard Charlie ask, still a little agitated, "What's the worst-case scenario?"

The door closed on the paramedic's answer.

Brett began hooking me up to a heart rate monitor. "Better to be safe?" I sighed at him, and he gave me a wolfish grin.

"You got it."

Edward was seated in the front and leaned around the seat to look at me. "'She'?" he said, asking something that I couldn't immediately decipher. It was odd - the beginning to the first real conversation we'd had. And I had come to school dreading the thought of talking to him. Somehow the event we had just lived through made my fears about staring seem ridiculous. It felt like we should have been friends - _acquaintances_ , at least.

"What?" I returned, not understanding his question.

"Your truck. You call it 'she'?"

I realized that I had. "I guess so, yeah." I struggled to articulate why it suddenly seemed necessary to give an inanimate object the dignity of a gendered pronoun. "She saved my life, right? I can't keep going around calling her 'it.' Although," I added in a lower voice, "I should probably come up with a name for her."

"Something from a book?" Edward guessed.

I was about to ask how he knew something like that about me, and then remembered Jessica's astonishing ability to offer up details on a host of much more deeply private matters than my enjoyment of books. "I guess my literary proclivities have been noted by the Forks gossip mill," I said instead.

Edward looked startled for a moment, but then smiled smoothly. "They are hard to miss," he agreed.

"Thank you, by the way," I told him. "I know my truck isn't wholly - or even _mostly_ \- responsible for the fact that I'm still breathing." I shook my head, remembering the brief glimpse I'd had of him before he had grabbed me. "If you haven't, though, you should probably try out for track. You are _fast_."

Something about that statement seemed to amuse him. "I'm not really one for organized sports," he told me with a little smirk.

I didn't know how to respond to that since it seemed to reference a joke I wasn't in on. I returned my attention to Brett. "Why doesn't Edward have to ride back here?" I asked him as the driver's door open and his partner climbed inside.

"I was doing the tackling, not getting tackled," Edward reminded me before Brett could speak. "Besides, my father is a doctor. Even if he didn't insist on checking me out - which he will - I've picked up enough from him that I would have a good idea if there were anything seriously wrong with me."

"Yep - all that," Brett agreed.

The conversation lapsed as we pulled out of the school parking lot, and Edward turned his attention forward again. My head was starting to ache and I hoped they would at least give me some Tylenol or something for it at the hospital.

Edward disappeared when we arrived. I was shown first to a small exam room where another nurse checked my vitals, pupil response and all that, and then, after a wait, was taken to the room where Tyler was laid out in bed. He was bruised and had fractured his arm, but was conscious and not in too much pain. Or they had given him something for it. I hoped it was the latter, because I wanted something for my head. "I'm so glad you're alright," he told me once the nurses had left us. "I'm really sorry. I can't believe - I'm really sorry."

"I'm not going to hold a grudge over it," I told him, "but I don't want an apology as much as a promise that you'll be more careful the next time you have to drive in adverse conditions."

He stared at me blankly for a long moment. "Like ice, or snow, or heavy rain," I prompted.

"Oh," he said at last, and then smiled ruefully. "Yeah - I think I've learned my lesson."

"Then you're forgiven," I told him.

One of the nurses returned then to take me in for an x-ray.

Afterward they gave me three Tylenol and - eventually - sent me back to the room I had shared with Tyler before. He was still there - dozing, it looked like, though he woke when I was brought in. "Any word yet on how likely I am to keel over?" I asked the nurse before he could leave.

His lips twitched but he managed not to actually smile. "You'll have to wait for the doctor," he told me.

I made a face and lay down again. "I wish I had a book," I sighed. I should have made Charlie retrieve the one I was in the middle of before I let him take my backpack.

"You don't want to talk to me?" Tyler asked, pretending to be offended.

"Not so much until the painkillers kick in," I told him. "My head hurts. It should be soon, though." It was hard to tell time in the hospital, and I had left my phone in my backpack, too. Stupid.

"At least we're not in school," he offered.

"I'd rather be in school," I assured him.

"Yeah...me too, probably."

We fell silent, and I tried to decide if my headache was receding yet. It was hard to tell and focusing on the pain was just making it worse, so I gave it up. Instead I found my mind going back to the accident. It had all happened so fast. One second I was looking at the chains Charlie had put on...and then someone had screamed...and then Edward had crashed into me and dragged me under the truck. All in a matter five seconds or less. And then - for the first time it occurred to me, _really_ occurred to me, that I had spent a solid two minutes wrapped in Edward's arms. I felt my face heat and hoped that Tyler wasn't looking at me, or wouldn't notice my blush if he was. I had never been in _any_ boy's arms before. It hadn't been romantic, of course, but still - Edward was so gorgeous - and he had held me. Never in my wildest dreams would have dared to picture something like that _that_.

It was strange that _Edward_ had been the one to save me - for the obvious reasons, of course, like the fact that any straight girl in the school would probably have happily taken a concussion to get saved by him. How had he even known that I would be in danger, though? I didn't think he had been that close to me - at least, I had somewhat absently taken note of his car when I pulled in and it had been well down the row of parking spaces, and I hadn't seen him anywhere nearer. I had the lingering impression of great speed from the moment before he had tackled me, but no one human could have made it from where his car had been parked to where I was in the brief second or two when it would have become obvious that I was in the path of Tyler's car. I hadn't been _watching_ Edward, so I supposed it was possible that he had moved with inhuman speed, but no one else had remarked on it, and it wasn't very probable.

Of course, the alternative was some kind of prescience, and that wasn't very probable, either.

Did it matter, though? Whatever magic the Pale Pretty People dabbled in, clearly it was _good_ magic. Edward had saved my life. I might be curious - I _was_ curious - but maybe this was one of those times when I should just leave it alone. I could do that. At least, I was reasonably sure that I could.

I spent a moment trying to come up with a more compelling reason to leave the mystery alone than "the Cullens deserved their privacy." That was a _good_ reason, but not a very _compelling_ one, because it left me entirely unsatisfied.

Abruptly I remembered looking up at Edward for the first time under the truck - feeling surprised to see him - the profound concern that shaped his beautiful features -

This time I turned my face away from Tyler, trying to make it seem like I was watching the door. My cheeks were burning and my breath coming in little gasps. I must have been in shock, because having his face that near to mine had hardly even registered - and it had registered even less when he had held me tightly a few moments later when I started crying. It hadn't mattered to me who he was. He could have been anyone. But it mattered to me now - my face had been pressed against his very firm chest and very expensive-looking shirt, and he had held me as though it was the most natural thing in the world.

Yes, this was a compelling reason not to get too interested in the mystery that the Cullens posed. Edward was entirely too irresistible and I didn't want my first experience with romance to be unrequited infatuation followed up with inevitable heartbreak. Jessica had already warned me that he didn't date.

At least - I believed her when she said he didn't date. The whole family kept that careful bubble of space between themselves and outsiders. But - the way he had said my name. Just that - but was I remembering the emotion he had managed to pack into that one word correctly? Surely not.

Then again, he hadn't seemed able to tear his eyes away from me yesterday. And he had saved my life.

Even if he did like me, though - so what? Was that what I wanted? I could date the hottest guy in school, maybe in the world, fall in love with him as surely as - as any natural event one might care to name - because of course I would - and then…? What? We would go to college. It would probably fall apart because it was just a high school romance, and things would probably be better that way. I categorically did not want to repeat my parents' mistakes. I surely would not think it was all for the best in the moment when things fell apart, though. I would once again be heartbroken.

I wanted dating experience, not a teenage melodrama. Edward, then, was not the boy for me.

I was glad I had decided it so categorically, because my pulse sped up anyway when he strolled casually through the door half a second later.


	10. Chapter 10

X.

I waited in Carlisle's office, lightly keeping tabs on his mind as he moved through the hospital. Tyler, it seemed, had fractured one of the bones in his forearm, and so Isobel was forced to wait as his injury was discussed and examined by the medical staff. It all made perfect sense - she had shown no alarming symptoms - but I was edgy and anxious anyway.

Carlisle was pleased with me. I had watched his eyes light with pride as I told him the story. I had saved our family from exposure and, at the same time, saved a life. I hadn't quite had the courage to tell him the real reason I had done it.

Not to save the family. Not to save _a_ life.

I had done it to save _Isobel_ \- not as an abstract or a moral imperative, but as a person whom I -

 _Whom I can't seem to stop thinking about_ , I acknowledged. There were other ways I might finish the sentence, but it was hard to say whether they were accurate or not. Leave it at "I can't stop thinking about her." It was damning enough.

Isobel was at last taken, as a preliminary to being x-rayed, to the room where Tyler was being kept. They had a short and largely meaningless conversation, though I found myself gritting my teeth in irritation when she forgave him for nearly killing her. He would not receive such an easy pardon from me.

 _Man, screw Mike_ , he thought. _After this I_ owe _it to Isobel to take her out._

I was out of the chair I had been sitting in before I knew what I was doing, but I managed to stop myself at the door. Even if I kept Tyler from asking Isobel on a date _now_ , he would just find time to do it later. She might not say yes to him. Even if she did, a single date was nothing. He would not manage to retain her attention for long - that I believed completely. Between what I had seen of her in the minds of others and what I had observed myself, I was certain that she was too discerning not to realize that a boy like Tyler was far below her on every conceivable measure of intelligence and maturity.

Besides, the only thing I could do to keep her from dating others would be to ask her out myself, and that was an utterly ridiculous proposition.

My concern turned out to be needless anyway. The nurse returned and took Isobel away for her x-ray before Tyler could work up the nerve to ask her out, and I reverted to Carlisle as my mental anchor. He was not her attending physician - as the best doctor on staff, he was generally given patients from the ER only if their situations were dire, and Isobel's situation appeared well under control - but her attending was glad to get his opinion when he offered it. I could see the x-ray through his eyes and breathed a sigh of relief. It appeared that I really hadn't hurt her.

Isobel was left alone for a while, meaning I couldn't keep watch over her. There had been several more car accidents in the area due to the ice during the forty minutes since our arrival, and Carlisle was called away to see to some of the patients. I was pacing his office, debating whether I should go to her physically, when she was finally taken back to Tyler's room. She ought to have been released, but everyone was understandably busy.

She and Tyler had another brief exchange, still largely meaningless. I didn't know what he thought they would talk about on the date he intended to ask her on. If he chose to do something utterly cliche and see a movie with her, I supposed that might save them from having to converse for a significant amount of time. Dinner, though, would be excruciating.

Isobel, claiming a headache, ended their limp exchange, but Tyler's attention - thankfully? - remained centered on her. He watched her thoughtful expression, wondering what apparently occupied her thoughts so completely. I desperately seconded his interest. Why did _her_ mind, so intriguing to me, have to be the one I couldn't read? Then, abruptly, she blushed. The pooling of blood beneath her skin made me feel strangely hungry. Not _thirsty_ \- it had nothing to do with the thirst - but hungry for...something.

Her thoughts - I knew that much. I wanted her _thoughts_.

Had she noticed Tyler's interest? Was she thinking of him? Of some other boy at school? Was she...was she thinking of me?

Her blush faded, but now her brow was furrowed, a small frown touching her lips. Was she in pain? I had seen the nurse give her a few pills for her head, but I hadn't watched her take them. Did she really have a headache? I felt a stab of anxiety. Perfectly normal x-ray or not, a lingering headache - especially one that wasn't affected by over-the-counter painkillers - could mean something was wrong.

Then, as though she was actually _trying_ to drive me crazy, she turned her face away from Tyler so that I couldn't see her expression at all.

This time I didn't check the impulse that carried me out the door with a growl.

Remaining at a respectable speed as I traversed the halls was maddening, but I managed somehow - even when Tyler finally grew bored of watching the back of Isobel's head and turned his attention to something else. A fresh jolt of anxiety hurried my steps, however, as I noticed, just before his mind began to wander, that her breathing had sped up. If she was having some sort of unlooked-for problem, a hospital was a good place to be under normal circumstances. Right now, however, none of the personnel were in a position to remember that she existed. She wasn't even hooked up to a heart monitor.

Even so - I stopped outside the door of their room to compose myself. If there was nothing wrong, I did not want to alarm them - or, rather, her. Tyler could have dropped off the face of the world for all I cared about him. I also had to brace myself for the scent that I knew would fill the room. It hadn't been such a problem when we were under the truck together, and I didn't want it to be a problem now - but, unfortunately, I had no guarantees. I took a deep breath, filling my lungs before I went in so that I could put off breathing for a little while.

I entered the room in a relaxed saunter, my hands in the pockets of my coat - retrieved while Isobel was being loaded into the ambulance before we were brought here - trying not to make obvious the way my eyes immediately sought and fastened on Isobel's face. Her cheeks were a little pink and they reddened further when she saw me.

That was...good? Bad? I had no way of knowing.

"Hey," I greeted them, forcing myself to glance at Tyler in order to make the greeting encompass him, too.

"Hey," Isobel echoed, her voice soft.

"Edward - " Tyler began. I knew he was going to apologize and didn't care in the least, but I tore my gaze away from Isobel and looked at him anyway. "I'm really sorry about earlier."

What was I supposed to say to that? I didn't care that he had almost hit me with his car - he couldn't have harmed me anyway, though of course he didn't know that. Could I tell him that I was only concerned about Isobel? No - that would reveal too much. I decided to mimic her tactic. "Just be more careful next time," I told him.

"Of course," he agreed quickly.

 _I_ was careful not to tell him that I had forgiven him. I hadn't.

There was still a little air left from my breath outside. I settled myself at the foot of Tyler's bed so that I wouldn't have to look at him. "How are you feeling?" I asked Isobel. "Head still hurt?"

"No," she answered, not quite meeting my eyes. "They gave me something for it, so it's okay now. I'm guessing that I'm fine, seeing as they've just left me here, but no one has come in to let me know."

Moment of truth - I had to breathe in order to continue the conversation. I sucked in a little air through my mouth. Yes, I could certainly taste her and, yes, it still hurt, but my desire to leap across the space between us and bury my teeth in her throat was well in check. "There were a couple of other accidents," I told her. "One was on the highway and was rather bad. Everyone is busy."

"Oh. That makes sense." She sighed and scrunched her nose up adorably. "I wish they would just let me go, though. My dad is probably freaking out."

I cast my mind toward the waiting room, but there were a number of people there, some from school and some waiting for news of people involved in the other collisions. I couldn't pick Charlie Swan out. His mental voice was typically very low-key - very few words involved. Even in the parking lot earlier I hadn't gotten much more than panic from him. He hadn't reacted to seeing me either way, but I couldn't tell if it meant Isobel hadn't said anything to him or whether he had simply been overwhelmingly concerned with her injury.

I realized suddenly that there might be something in his relative opacity, but I could pursue it later. For now…

"I can go look for Carlisle - my father - for you, if you'd like," I offered, searching the hospital for him and finding him just finished with dealing the worst-off of the victims. "I'm certain he would be happy to let you know what your x-ray results were and get the release process started."

"Really?" Her face lit up. "If you could do that, Edward - I would appreciate it a _lot_."

My cold, dead chest felt strangely and unexpectedly warm. It was just a favor - it was only luck that I could even do it for her - but knowing her smile was for _me_ made me happier than -

Than I could ever remember being before.

The thought was a shock, and it was an even greater shock to realize that it was _true_.

I kept my own smile fixed in place. "I'll be right back," I promised, and got out of the room as fast as I could while still looking human and casual.

Finding Carlisle was no difficulty; I just followed the direction of his thoughts. "Do you have a minute?" I asked him when I reached him in the nurses' station where he was looking over a chart. "I need to talk to you."

"Is anything wrong?" he asked, his thoughts immediately going to all the exposed blood in the hospital.

I shook my head. "Maybe, but nothing like that."

"Come back to my office," he replied.

The hospital was small, as befitted a town the size of Forks, so it wasn't a terribly long walk to the office. I began pacing as he closed the door, trying to decide how to approach the issue. He waited patiently, leaning against his desk. It was funny, I noted distantly, how good at blending in we had become. Our muscles - if something so alien could even accurately be called that anymore - never tired, and so there was no reason to sit on or lean against anything. Yet even here, in private, Carlisle perched nonchalantly on the edge of his desk. I had taken a chair earlier while waiting for him. Someone could come in of course -

I was avoiding the issue. "Carlisle," I began, "how did you feel - when Esme - when you first saw her - what I'm asking is, what was it that made you - choose her?" I didn't want to remind him of the first time he had seen Esme, lying at the bottom of a cliff with a broken neck. It was painful for him to remember. I needed to know, though.

He frowned at me thoughtfully. "I simply knew that she could not die. It wasn't so very different from choosing you, or Rosalie." His eyes flickered away from mine. "Just perhaps…more urgent." He leveled his gaze at me again. "Why are you asking this, Edward? Does it have something to do with the Swan girl?"

It had _everything_ to do with the Swan girl. I nodded miserably. "The thought of her - " No, I couldn't finish that. I raked my hand through my hair. "Carlisle - I don't know if there is anything I wouldn't do to protect her."

There was a long moment of silence as he thought that over. "Even from yourself?" he asked at last, gently.

"I don't...know," I whispered.

We were silent again, both thinking of my plan to leave Forks - both considering how impossible Carlisle would find it to leave Esme behind. Or Emmett to leave Rosalie, for that matter, or Jasper to leave Alice. Carlisle was no fool. He now understood the reluctance I had displayed while we were hunting together. I thought, in truth, that he understood it better than I did. "Perhaps you ought to talk to Alice," he advised me after a long moment.

"Alice?" I asked.

"If you love her, Edward, and you kill her, what will that do to you?"

I shuddered.

Carlisle went on: "I know your - views - but it may be best to consider turning - "

"No!" I cut him off harshly. "Do you think protecting her doesn't mean protecting her from _this_ ," I indicated the two of us, "as well?"

He sighed and shrugged. "As little as you may like it, and as much as you may struggle not to believe it, you may not be able to protect her from...everything." He mentally ticked off a few of the most obvious dangers of a human finding herself pulled even halfway into our world - she was only human, and so very breakable. Even if our family managed not to harm her, others of our kind occasionally visited or stumbled across us, and it was hardly safe to bring _any_ human to their notice. And then, of course, there were the Volturi... "If there are hard choices to be made, Alice's visions will offer you better advice than any of the rest of us - me included."

Yes - I saw his logic and found myself nodding. I wouldn't turn her - not _ever_ \- but Alice might be able to tell me how much of a danger _I_ posed to her - either as a blood-sucking monster or as a means of bringing her to the attention of other blood-sucking monsters. If I had to leave - I would. To hell with every other vampire couple I had ever known. I would do what was best for Isobel if it killed me.

"Was there anything else?" Carlisle asked, interrupting my deliberation on the matter.

"Yes," I replied, remembering that I had promised to get Isobel released. "Everyone has forgotten about Isobel - understandably - but no one has given her the results of the x-ray, and she should be released." I grunted. "Likely no one has told Charlie Swan, either, and he is very probably worried."

Carlisle's face softened. "Going out of your way to see to the comfort of a human isn't like you. I think I approve of the change."

I shrugged, suddenly as embarrassed as if I really were a teenager caught out by his father in some foolishly maudlin gesture. Carlisle smiled at me kindly and smoothed his hair. "Let's go take a look at my patient," he told me.


	11. Chapter 11

Note: Merry almost-the-end-of-the-bloody-semester. You're getting this one a little early because I've been trying to post Saturday nights, but we're celebrating my best friend's birthday tonight and I don't intend to be home in time to post anything. When I _do_ make it home, I also intend to be tipsy, slightly giggly, and much too uncoordinated to be trusted around a computer.

* * *

XI.

I was starting to think it really was a cult, even though I had never heard of a cult dedicated to saving people from volleyballs, careening cars, and extended waits in hospitals - which this one apparently was. Dr. Cullen shared the same peculiar outward characteristics displayed by his adopted children: ice-pale skin, dark circles under his eyes, unspeakable beauty. His hair was gold to Edward's reddish brown, and his features were more patrician, giving an impression of dignity and nobility that was further reinforced by the refined sweetness of his voice. It was probably good that he was a doctor, because his manner seemed made for it.

If he made me feel self-consciously clumsy and vaguely grubby, I was certain that he was much too kind to intend it.

"Your x-rays look good," he told me, his pale amber eyes examining my chart. "Does your head still hurt?" Edward perched casually behind him on Tyler's bed.

"Only if I touch spot where I hit it," I told him. "They gave me something for the headache."

He nodded and reached out to probe the knot on my head carefully, his fingers cold against my scalp. The knot must have been hot from the swelling, because his fingers felt _really_ cold. His touch was gentle, but I still winced. "It certainly is swollen. You should keep using Tylenol for the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours, but make sure not to take more than five doses in any twenty-four hour period. After that, you should switch to an NSAID such as Advil or Aleve, though you can continue to use Tylenol to boost the effectiveness or if you start getting close to the maximum recommended dosage." He flashed me a smile. "I'll make sure all of that is included in the release instructions they print out for you."

"Thanks," I responded wryly.

"Make sure you come back _immediately_ if you start getting dizzy or have trouble with your eyesight."

"I will," I promised. I didn't fancy dying from something as stupidly treatable as a concussion.

"Alright, then, I think that's all. Edward can take you out to the reception desk and make sure they release you and give you your instructions." He flipped through a few pages, nodded, and then half turned to look at Tyler. "You, I'm afraid, won't be going anywhere for a while…"

Edward hopped off Tyler's bed and came around the side of mine that was nearer the door, his hand half outstretched, as though he was thinking of offering to help me up.

"I'm fine," I grunted, swinging my legs out of bed and sliding to the floor. Of course, having made it a point to reject Edward's assistance, I stumbled. His hand was instantly on my upper arm, steadying me - physically, at least. I felt anything but steady as my eyes met his. They were even the same color as Dr. Cullen's, or maybe just a touch lighter.

Wait - that couldn't be right, could it? I distinctly remembered him glaring at me that first day - and his eyes had been black. I had seen myself mirrored in them.

"Are you okay?" he asked me in an undertone. I realized I was staring.

"Fine," I replied, shaking my head. The magic of the Pale Pretty People didn't matter, I reminded myself.

He spent another very brief moment studying my face, but then released me and led the way from the room.

"I was hoping I would get a chance to talk to you," I told him as we walked through the halls together.

"Oh?" he asked. There was a much larger world of meaning in that one syllable than my simple statement warranted.

I glanced around. I'd never been in the Forks hospital before so I had no idea where we were, but it seemed to be fairly deserted. I caught Edward's sleeve and tugged him toward an alcove that was only half-filled with unidentifiable medical equipment. He followed me, looking torn between confusion and disapproval. "Um," I said.

"Is everything alright?" he asked me, still appearing rather tense.

"Yes, of course," I sighed. "You saved my _life_."

"You already thanked me for that," he reminded me.

"Not as fervently as it deserves," I retorted. "And - besides - " I had never told anyone that his unspoken secrets were safe with me before, and now that it came to it, I found it vaguely embarrassing. "Look," I tried again, "I don't know what you and your family are…"

He seemed to freeze. I wasn't even certain he was breathing. "What do you mean by that?"

I ignored the question and pressed on. "I'll admit that you scared me that first day." I cast a swift glance at his face, but he didn't seem to know how to respond. He just looked faintly horrified. "And you're all so strange - the way you look, the way your eyes change color, and then of course how you even knew I was going to be in trouble…" I shook my head, unable to succinctly explain the rest of the holes I had found in their explanations of who and what they were. "But today I realized none of that matters."

He let out the breath he had apparently been holding in a whoosh of air. "It...doesn't?" he asked.

"No," I told him, trying to let my voice carry the full weight of my sincerity. "Whatever you are, it's clearly _good_. So, um, I guess what I'm saying is - I won't bother you."

"You won't?" he repeated, looking dazed. " _Good_?" he added almost incredulously.

I nodded sharply as he ran a hand through his hair, looking anywhere _but_ at me. "After what you did for me, privacy is the least I can offer you, right?"

His features settled into a bleak, desolate expression that reminded me of the world-weariness I had seen in him my first day - only about a million times worse. I didn't want him to look like that. I didn't want _anyone_ to look like that. I might have happily gone my whole life without knowing anyone _could_ look like that. On impulse, I grabbed his hand. His skin was freezing - another oddity that I refused to consider. " _Thank you_ ," I managed, before he snatched his hand away from mine.

"Don't thank me," he muttered. "I didn't - do it for your gratitude."

That seemed like it was probably true. I couldn't imagine that my gratitude was worth much - unless he did like me, I supposed. But, in that case, gratitude probably wasn't the emotion he wanted from me. "Even so," I told him, "it's yours anyway."

He closed his eyes. "Isobel - " he began.

This had, I decided, been drawn out long enough. He was hiding something and he liked me - that was becoming obvious. Fine. I wasn't going to get pulled into it, though.

"We'd better get going," I told him, doing my best to inject plenty of good cheer into my tone. "I really am worried about Charlie worrying, and I don't think I can make it out of here on my own."

His eyes opened and he spent a moment staring at a spot on the wall just above and beyond my head. "Right," he sighed at last. "This way."

"Oh," I remembered as I began following him again. He gave me an unreadable glance that I chose to interpret as encouragement. "Can I ask you for a favor? Or - if not you, maybe Alice?"

"What is it?" he asked, his tone a little cool. Well, I _had_ shut down whatever he was about to confess.

"I was going to try to help Angela with trig, but I guess that isn't going to happen. The assignment is due tomorrow. I noticed that Alice always seems to know the right answer in class, and Jessica mentioned that you were all in an accelerated program when you were in Alaska." It couldn't have been like my program or they wouldn't have had to take so many classes, but maybe their old school had offered lots of AP and Honors options.

He gave me an incredulous glance. "You want me to help your friend with math?"

"Is that weird?" I asked.

A frown was his only answer.

I bit my lip, trying to decide if it was unfair, strongly suspecting that he liked me, to try to use it to persuade him to help Angela. My suspicion was that it probably was. "You might like her if you gave her a chance," I tried instead.

"That isn't the issue," he told me quellingly. "I'll see if Alice would be willing," he added, his tone grudging. "She's...better at that sort of thing."

The way he said the words seemed to imply something besides Alice being better at explaining or teaching things. "It's no wonder you don't talk to anyone," I sighed. "Half of what you say seems to have a double or triple meaning. If you're going to keep secrets, you should be less obvious about it."

He growled at me, but we had arrived at the waiting room so I was spared whatever form his irritation would have otherwise taken. It occurred to me belatedly that I was still relying on him to help me convince the staff that it was time for me to be released, and that I perhaps shouldn't antagonize him - even half-jokingly - until that was accomplished. He went with me to talk to the nurse at the reception desk without my having to ask, though, made me briefly nervous by disappearing for a moment while I answered insurance questions, but then reappeared with Charlie in tow just as I was finishing. He even made sure that I had all the instructions that Dr. Cullen had given me.

"Thanks," I told him before we left. "For this, I mean," I clarified, indicating the sheaf of papers I was holding.

He nodded and didn't quite meet my eyes.

"I'll see you at school tomorrow - you know, provided nothing _else_ horrible happens."

"Not funny, Bells," Charlie muttered at me. I could tell he was still on edge - usually he would absolutely have found it funny. He reached out and clapped Edward on the shoulder, though. "Thank you," he told him, his undemonstrative voice as fervent as it ever got.

Edward met _his_ eyes, even if he was avoiding mine. "I'm glad I was in the right place at the right time," he told Charlie.

They nodded at each other, some kind of understanding passing between them. A guy thing, I supposed.

Angela, Jessica and June were all unexpectedly waiting for us by the exit. Each of them hugged me in turn and I filled them in on how Tyler was doing. "And Angela," I began when I had given them all the information I had.

"Don't worry about trig," she told me.

"Too late," I replied. "Edward seemed to think that Alice would be able and willing to help you out at lunch, so hopefully you'll manage to get the assignment finished."

She looked shocked. So did Jessica and June, in fact. "Alice Cullen?" Angela asked.

"Is there another Alice at school?" I countered. It was an honest question - "Alice" might be an uncommon name for someone of our generation, but I didn't know everyone at school.

"No," she said, shaking her head, "it's just…not really the kind of thing they do?"

"Why not?" I wondered.

All three girls just stared at me. "I don't know," Angela said at last. "They just don't. Thanks, though. I guess that if Alice is willing to help me, she probably _can_. Supposedly all of the Cullens are geniuses or something. Either way, don't worry about it. I can afford one bad grade, and you can help me for next week if I still need it and you still want to."

"Thanks for letting us know about Tyler," Jessica added before Charlie pulled me away from them.

"Sure. I'll see you guys tomorrow."

A chorus of "see you" and "bye" followed me into the parking lot.

"Did you get my truck?" I asked Charlie as we drove home. "Is she okay? I saw the chains you put on, by the way, and they made driving to school pretty easy."

"Your truck is fine," Charlie replied even more tersely than usual. Definitely still on edge. "Bells - I told your mother."

He said it as though he was confessing something, and for good reason. "Daaaaad," I groaned. If Charlie had been made extremely uneasy by a little bump to my head, my mother would be in an absolute frenzy. She was going to want me to return to Phoenix. She was going to want to come to Forks to look me over for herself, regardless of what trained professionals had to say about my condition. "I told you that I was fine!" I continued, irritated with Charlie. "You know how she worries!"

"I couldn't just not say anything," he replied, his voice gruff. "If your head hurts, I'll give her a call now and you can take a nap - "

I waved the offer away. "I'm fine and I'm not tired. I'll call her when we get home."

He nodded shortly and fell silent until we were almost home. "I hope you thanked that Cullen boy," he said at last as we turned onto our street.

"I did," I assured him. My tone was still a little sulky, but I couldn't help it. I couldn't _believe_ he had told my mother. "Of course I did. He probably saved my life."

"Quick thinking, pulling you under the truck. He's a smart boy."

I regarded Charlie with some incredulity. "Dad, are you trying to set me up with Edward Cullen?"

His ears turned red. "Of course not. If he asked, though…"

"Dad!"

"I'm just saying." He pulled into the driveway and I got out quickly before he could say anything else horribly embarrassing.

My mom was frantic, of course. It took me ten minutes to convince her that I didn't need to return home immediately, and another fifteen to discourage her from hopping on the next plane to Seattle. I was lucky that she hadn't been able to decide which one I would be more amenable to - she hadn't actually _bought_ any of the plane tickets she was looking at. I was an expert at negotiating full refunds on things by now, but it wasn't a skill I enjoyed putting to use.

Once she had calmed down, I told her about Charlie putting chains on my truck so that I wouldn't have trouble with the ice, and I couldn't avoid mentioning Edward in explaining how I had managed to escape getting squashed. She wanted to know about both him and Tyler, and teased me gently about both - a sure sign that she was starting to feel more steady. I would have appreciated it more if she hadn't left me blushing.

I spent the rest of the day alternately reading and getting ahead on homework. In the evening Angela called to let me know that she had gotten trig help from Alice, and to tell me a little about it, describing the experience as "strange" and "uncanny." "It was like she knew exactly what analogies and - I don't know - methods, I guess, would work for me," she explained. "Half the time when I _had_ a question to clarify something, she was already answering it before I had a chance to _ask_."

I agreed that it was very odd - the Pale Pretty People were undeniably that - but didn't join her in speculating on it. I had made a promise, after all.

My head remained more or less okay all day, but I took a couple more Tylenol before bed on principle. In the morning I would have to deal with Edward again, and I had no idea what that would look like. I didn't want to do it at less than my best.


	12. Chapter 12

Note: There was a bit of a wait for this chapter since I posted the last one early. Luckily this is a nice long one, so hopefully its length will serve as sufficient compensation for the wait. I spent a _while_ playing with the confrontation scene: reading, tweaking and re-reading. Thoughts on it are welcome.

* * *

XII.

My conversation with Isobel was giving me a little sympathy for Tyler. A _very_ little.

Perhaps "conversation" was a misnomer. It wasn't much of a conversation - Isobel was saying what she wanted to say, and I was doing an excellent impression of an inarticulate moron. I had been nervous enough just walking down the hall with her. Getting pulled into this alcove was worse. She was standing so close that I hardly dared to breathe - maybe that was why I was letting her list for me the oddities she had noticed about my family. Maybe I realized that I needed to know. Maybe I was just stunned by how observant she was. Maybe...I was fascinated by finally, _finally_ getting to hear some of her thoughts.

"Whatever you are," she finished, "it's clearly _good_. So, um, I guess what I'm saying is - I won't bother you."

"You won't?" I repeated, feeling much, much duller than I was accustomed to feeling around any human, ever.

Bother me? Did she think she _bothered_ me?

The rest of her statement registered. " _Good_?" I repeated with equal disbelief.

Her chin jerked up in a sharp, certain nod. "After what you did for me, privacy is the least I can offer you, right?" she asked.

It was a rhetorical question, but I wanted to answer it. _No_ , I wanted to say, _privacy is the last thing I want from you_. Or perhaps: _Yes, it is_ literally _the least you can offer me_.

I was too shocked to pay attention to my expression. Whatever Isobel saw in it, it made her suddenly grab my hand. Even in my stupor I could have dodged her - I almost did, instinctively - but I would have had to move faster than a human could and so I let her touch me. " _Thank you_ ," she said with fervent gratitude.

I snatched my hand from hers in a much more natural-seeming way - my flesh had to feel cold to her, like the dead thing I nearly was. She hadn't reacted, but she had already noticed too much about us without looking as though she was noticing anything. I had no doubt that she would quietly take note of this, as well.

"Don't thank me," I muttered, torn between embarrassment and despair. "I didn't do it for your gratitude."

I regretted the words as soon as they left my mouth. They could be taken in so many wrong ways, even though I only meant that her life was so important to me that saving it was no more than selfishness. Isobel didn't look hurt or angry, though. She blinked once and gave a little nod. "Even so," she told me with a shrug, her eyes meeting mine fearlessly, "it's yours anyway."

Her eyes were such a warm color - they made me think of velvet, of fertile earth...and of the way her body had felt pressed against mine under her truck, the way her lips _would_ feel if I kissed them…

I closed my eyes resolutely against the temptation. "Isobel," I began, uncertain what I was going to say. Would I tell her it was time to leave? Confess everything? Tell her not to date Tyler? Beg for a kiss?

She cut me off before I could find out. "We'd better get going," she told me, her voice cheerful. It might have been forced. I was in no shape to evaluate. "I really am worried about Charlie worrying," she went on, "and I don't think I can make it out of here on my own."

My eyes opened and I took a deliberate breath in through my nose, finding perverse pleasure in the burning pain of her scent, reminding myself of what I was. Isobel Swan was not mine and would never _be_ mine. It hurt more than the burn of my throat. Why _her_? Why not some nice vampire woman like Tanya? I knew the kind of happiness that a well-mated pair could have together. I saw it every day in every member of my family. With a human girl - especially _this_ human girl, smelling as she did - I could never have my share of that joy. I didn't want this and hadn't asked for it. Any of it.

And yet...whatever this feeling was, no matter that it was agonizing, no matter that I didn't even know if it was love - I didn't want it to end, either.

Isobel was was waiting for my reply, watching me patiently. She needed to go home with her father. My misgivings could wait. "Right," I sighed, "This way."

"Oh," she said, sounding as if she had just remembered something as she began following me. I glanced at her but didn't immediately respond, still feeling off-balance. I doubted that, if she had something to say, she would be put off by my lack of encouragement.

Just as I had expected, she continued after a brief moment of thought: "Can I ask you for a favor? Or - if not you, maybe Alice?"

 _Yes_ , I nearly answered - a blanket agreement whose possible implications left me chilled. "What is it?" I asked instead, the caution in my tone coming more from the intractable bent of my own thoughts than fear of what she might ask. She had promised not to _bother_ me, after all.

"I was going to try to help Angela with trig, but I guess that isn't going to happen." Her face scrunched up in adorable irritation. "The assignment is due tomorrow. I noticed that Alice always seems to know the right answer in class, and Jessica mentioned that you were all in an accelerated program when you were in Alaska." She indicated me along with my siblings with a wave of her hand.

Ah yes, the fictional "accelerated program" that was meant to explain why we always knew the answers to every question a witless human high school teacher could throw at us. In spite of our obvious superiority, however, no one had ever actually asked us for help with their homework. Isobel wasn't asking for herself, but even so… "You want me to help your friend with math?" I wasn't certain whether it was a good thing or a bad one.

"Is that weird?" she asked, eyeing me speculatively.

It wasn't just "weird," it was utterly unique. I frowned at her, trying to decide if the request was good - perhaps an indication that she trusted me - or if she had an ulterior motive. Then, too, perhaps trust was not a good thing at all. She should not trust me. I was dangerous to her.

Isobel looked away from me, biting her lip anxiously. Had I upset her? "You might like her if you gave her a chance," she offered.

I highly doubted it, and had the sudden suspicion that Isobel had noticed my interest in her and was trying to put me off. "That isn't the issue," I told her in a tone that I hoped would check any attempts on her part to deflect me to one of her friends. "I'll see if Alice would be willing," I allowed after a brief moment of thought. "She's...better at that sort of thing." Being able to see into the future gave her an edge on figuring out how to explain concepts to others in ways that they would find easy to grasp. It wasn't something she had tested on humans, but all of us within the family preferred Alice as tutor for any new or, more rarely, difficult concept we came across.

It was Isobel's turn to frown at me. "It's no wonder you don't talk to anyone," she sighed. "Half of what you say seems to have a double or triple meaning. If you're going to keep secrets, you should be less obvious about it."

Was there _anything_ she didn't notice? I wanted to defend myself against the accusation. No one _else_ had ever noticed the disconnect between my words and what I meant by them. That would have been acknowledging that I had secrets to keep, however, and, besides, we had arrived at the waiting room. I contented myself with grumbling something incoherent in her general direction.

We went to the reception desk together and I had the nurse get her release paperwork started. Then I went looking for Charlie Swan.

Though I still couldn't pick him out mentally from a crowd, he wasn't terribly difficult to find: he was in the waiting area with everyone else. Once I was within sight of him, I was finally able to pick out his subtle thoughts - restrained, with few words, some images, mostly simple emotion. It seemed likely to me that Jasper was right after all; it was a matter of degrees. Charlie Swan's mind was not as accessible to me as those of most people. His daughter's was even less accessible.

I sighed, resigned. Isobel Swan's thoughts were closed to me. I would never know what she was thinking unless she agreed to tell me.

The police chief looked up as I approached, his face draining of color. "Isobel?" he gasped.

"She's being released," I reassured him. "I came to get you, sir - you'll probably need to sign some forms. My father looked over her x-rays himself. As far as anyone can tell, she's perfectly fine."

His shoulders sagged with sudden relief. "Edward," he said.

"Sir?" I replied.

"You saved my daughter's life." He held his hand out to me, and I saw no graceful way to avoid shaking it. He didn't seem to notice how cold I was, though - too focused on his own fears. "You saved her _life_."

"I probably did, sir, yes." I pulled my hand from his and shoved both of mine into my pockets. If Charlie Swan was anywhere near as perceptive as his perfect and impossibly provoking daughter, _he_ might decide to try comforting me. "It was luck that I was in the right place at the right time." Carlisle had not been exaggerating when he told me that losing Isobel would kill Charlie. My stomach twisted with guilt. Leaving aside Tyler's idiocy, I was still more dangerous to Isobel than anything and anyone else in Forks.

"I hope she thanked you herself," he went on, a touch of amused affection creeping into his tone.

"She did," I assured him. "Twice."

"You're welcome any time, you hear? Anything you - or your father - need, just say the word."

The guilt stabbed at me, this time tempered with a healthy dose of despair. Charlie's words, coupled with what I could gather from his thoughts, informed me that he had just given me tacit permission to date his daughter. He didn't seem thrilled by the idea of her dating in general, but I could tell that he liked me - probably liked me even before today. I didn't think she had told him about our first day of school together. It no longer surprised me. She was a strange girl. "Thank you, sir," I told Charlie smoothly, covering my feelings.

"I guess she's probably at the reception desk?"

I led the way back to where I had left her and had the pleasure of watching her face light when she saw us - or, at least, when she caught sight of her father. Charlie signed off on a few things while I asked the nurse to print out Carlisle's instructions for her, and suddenly she was finished and ready to go home. "I'll see you at school tomorrow," she told me, her tone perfectly casual. "You know, provided nothing _else_ horrible happens," she added - a terrible joke.

Charlie agreed with my silent assessment. "Not funny, Bells," he muttered at her.

She rolled her eyes, unabashed.

A few moments later she was gone and I had no reason not to go back to school.

Carlisle willingly let me borrow his car. I pulled out my phone to text Alice and ask if she would be willing to help Angela study, but found I already had a message from her. "Already saw what I'm doing at lunch," it read. I could hear her chirpy voice as she said it. "See you after school. We need to have a family meeting with and about Jasper."

I grimaced at her last sentence, but I had already seen the seeds of what worried Alice. Like all my siblings, I knew Jasper's mind entirely too intimately. He posed a real danger to Isobel if Alice and I couldn't succeed in talking him out of hurting her.

I would die - and, worse, kill - before I allowed that to happen.

Even from the cafeteria I could hear Alice being bored in the library during lunch, but her boredom was more pleasant than the time I was spending with our siblings. Rosalie was furious with me for reasons that I wasn't certain even she fully understood, and kept a constant stream of mental insults aimed my direction.

Jasper was calm and willing to discuss what had happened, but was seriously considering just taking Isobel out - so great was his confidence in his ability to outmaneuver me that he didn't even care if I knew. He was _overly_ confident - he believed that he could find some way to pin me between unpalatable choices, such as protecting the family from exposure versus protecting Isobel's life. What he didn't realize was that I would drop everything - _everything_ \- in order to protect Isobel.

Emmett would have made decent company if it hadn't been for his incessant reflection on Isobel as a delicacy instead of the real, solid, absolutely necessary person she had become for me. In some ways he was actually the most difficult. He kept reverting back to the evening when he had encountered the woman who smelled particularly delicious to him, trying to imagine how she could have smelled or tasted _better_.

He only realized what he was doing when I kicked him under the table and shot him a glare that should have instantly immolated him. Some of my anger cooled at his sincere mental apology, though I didn't entirely forgive him.

The rest of the day passed in a similar blur, with only questions from teachers about Tyler and Isobel to relieve it even marginally. I didn't have much to say about Tyler, but relished the excuse to say Isobel's name, if only in passing.

There was no denying that one of Rosalie's many - and increasingly creative - insults was right on the mark: I was utterly pathetic.

At home once again, we gathered to consult as we always did when something out of the ordinary occurred - not a common event. Our lives were, on the whole, very predictable and rather boring when it came to interacting with the human world.

We took our places around the dining room table, which we used as a kind of conference room rather than for its intended purpose. Carlisle sat at one end, Esme at the other. Arrayed against me were Jasper and Rosalie - I had overheard them conferring in low tones after school, and was unsurprised. Emmett paced uncomfortably behind his wife, too good-natured to be entirely willing to commit to killing a girl whose only crime was smelling too good, and whom I had gone to great lengths to avoid preying upon myself. Alice came in last, her eyes glazed with the multiple futures she was attempting to sort through. She sat down next to Esme - on my side of the table - without appearing to notice the significance of her gesture.

Everyone was silent for a moment, uncertain how to begin.

Rosalie, predictably enough, found her voice first. "Edward, you're being an idiot," she snapped at me, her golden eyes flashing. "She's a _human,_ for fuck's sake."

"Rosalie, language," Esme murmured.

"You cannot make friends with a human," Rosalie went on, ignoring her. " _Especially_ one you might end up killing!"

"I _won't_ ," I snarled, but Rose went on, speaking over me: "Her father is the fucking _Chief of Police_!"

Esme's hand met the table with a bang, and her usually gentle voice was as hard as steel. "Rosalie Lilian Hale, watch your language."

Rose turned her eyes to our spiritual mother, ready for a fight. "Edward is courting an unmasking, and you're worried about my _language_?" she demanded, incredulous.

"The way we speak about things matters," Esme told her, her voice returning to normal, denying Rose the chance to lay into her. "Edward must have his reasons. Not listening - assuming the worst - disrespects the bonds we _all_ share." She cast a warm, loving look around the table and the tension filling the room decreased marginally. The atmosphere was still strained, but suddenly we were aware of ourselves as a group, as a family, rather than as a collection of individuals with competing needs and desires. This was what Esme did to us, made of us - the reason we regarded her as a mother.

Rose subsided, chastened a bit, at least for the moment. I felt safe turning my attention to Jasper. As vocal as Rosalie might be, she respected Esme and Carlisle too much for any kind of rash or unilateral action. Jasper was the real threat. "I won't let you hurt her."

"She should have died today," Jasper told me, his voice calm and unruffled, but still cold. "You were right to stop it from happening publicly. Now I will make certain that there will never be a risk of you exposing us again."

"No," I growled, my voice going low and menacing.

"I won't bring Alice into a war zone." Memories flashed through his mind - he had spent his first century in a place torn apart by rival vampire gangs. It had gotten so out of hand that the Volturi had stepped in, nearly obliterating both sides. Jasper was fortunate to have gotten out before they came, or he would not have survived. There were no rival vampires here, but if we were unmasked, as Rosalie feared - it would be worse than a war zone. When the Volturi arrived, it would be a _dead_ zone.

I understood his fear, but there was no going back. I would gladly risk my life, his life, _all_ our lives, for Isobel. My voice, when I spoke, was low and certain. "The only way this will become a war zone is if you persist in threatening Isobel."

He looked shocked as, using his gift, he sampled the emotions his threats had called forth from me. His confidence wavered as he recognized the similarity to his own feelings for Alice, though he immediately attempted to reject the comparison. Still - it was enough to clear Alice's vision for the briefest moment, and I sensed a wave of wordless glee from her. My head swiveled towards her end of the table, seeking to see what it was she had seen. "Jasper," she said, her eyes focusing on us for the first time since she had come in, "he's serious. What you would do to protect me? That's what Edward would do to protect Isobel Swan."

Her pronouncement sent another wave of shock around the table, but I had no more than cursory attention to spare for it. In Alice's mind were two images of horror: one of Isobel, pale-skinned, red-eyed and inhumanly beautiful. The other of her - dead. That I was dead too in that future seemed, at the moment, an utterly irrelevant detail.

Alice met my eyes, nodding, knowing that I knew. "Either you both die, or she turns," she told me levelly. _And you had_ better _not die_ , she added mentally.

My chest constricted in a way that would have been painful if I had been alive. "You're wrong," I whispered.

"You can see it for yourself."

"Both die?" Esme asked, her voice high and frightened.

Alice glanced toward the end of the table. "If he doesn't turn her, the Volturi will eventually learn that she knows about us, and they'll kill both. That's if he doesn't kill her himself on accident - followed with a swift self-immolation," she explained. Her eyes returned to me. "You'll choose death over living without her, Edward. Remember that."

"No," our mother gasped.

"What are you talking about?" Emmett asked. "What are they talking about?" he asked Rosalie more specifically.

I couldn't tear my mind away from those twin images of horror. "I have to leave," I gasped.

"What part of _you'll choose death over living without her_ is unclear to you, Edward?" Alice asked, her voice shrill as she tossed her head in irritation.

"Edward...is in love with a _human_ ," Rosalie explained slowly, radiating disgust.

"A _human_?" Emmett repeated. "A human…" he whispered. Shock gave way to humor, and he doubled over with laughter. "Oh, I should have known. I should have known! Why _else_ would you work so hard not to eat her?"

"Nauseating," Rosalie said with a sneer.

"Hilarious," Emmett disagreed.

Esme fastened on a different piece of Rosalie's inference. "Love?" she breathed, her face lighting with hope.

"What about the rest of us?" Jasper asked.

"Alice, you're _wrong_ ," I interrupted flatly, but Alice ignored me and answered Jasper.

"The Volturi like Carlisle, and even at the last Edward will look out for us. He'll take all the responsibility himself. There's a good chance he will even let them turn her - if it's turning or death - and in most futures they prefer turning. That mental silence of hers might make her a witch, and you know how pleased they are to find new witches."

"You're _wrong_ ," I repeated in a despairing howl.

Alice returned her attention to me. "I'm not wrong, Edward. Tyler Crowley is going to ask Isobel out tomorrow, and she'll say yes. You know as well as I do that you won't be able to stand by and watch _that_ without intervening."

The thought of her with that wretched fool was an almost physical pain, worse - infinitely worse - than it had been in Carlisle's office when Tyler first decided to ask her on a date. I hadn't realized just how much I had been counting on her refusal. Knowing that she would agree made me - made me want to kill him.

"If it's one way or the other and you're safe," Jasper said to Alice, "I'll let her be."

I hardly heard him.

I wanted to _kill_ Tyler - a seventeen-year-old boy who had never threatened me, had hardly even _spoken_ to me. My chair hit the floor with a clatter before I realized I was standing. Isobel was _mine_ , or it felt like she was - felt like she should be - felt like there was no other option. This thing I felt for her wasn't love, not the way humans thought of love. It was stronger than that, less noble, terribly selfish. She was my _mate_. She was meant for me. If she didn't feel the same - everything was utterly, utterly pointless.

In a flash I was out the door, running - trying to outrun despair.

Isobel was human. Of course she didn't feel as I did. I felt the way vampires felt when they found their mates. She felt the way seventeen-year-old humans felt around members of the sex to whom they were romantically inclined. There was no comparison. Telling her how I felt would frighten her out of her wits, and rightly so. Turning was no better than death - worse, under most circumstances. One way or another, I was set up to be the one who ended her life.

I leapt up a tree overlooking the Puget Sound and gazed across the water at the lights of Seattle. No matter what Alice said, I had choices. I was a rational creature, and my future was mine to make.

Tyler was going to ask Isobel on a date.

Good, I told myself savagely. He was human, normal, safe. Not intelligent, generous or insightful, but someday she would find a man who was the latter as well as the former. This was just a high school romance - little more than an idle flirtation. She would have fun, perhaps get a bit hurt, and move on. I would be happy for her. I wouldn't just tolerate their relationship, I would be _happy_ for her. If she was everything to me, then her happiness was my happiness. If dating Tyler was what she wanted, it was what I wanted for her.

I just...had to make myself believe it.

Maybe Alice was right about that much: maybe I couldn't force myself to stay away from her. But maybe I didn't need to. Isobel had spoken to me easily, as a friend. I would content myself with friendship. Mostly.

Isobel Swan had needed a guardian today, and I had been there. Perhaps one day, in the future, she would need a guardian once again - and, once again, I could be her champion. In the daylight - I would accept her friendship. In the darkness - I would watch over her safety.

It wasn't what I wanted. There would be no personal fulfillment in pursuing _her_ happiness. But if I succeeded, if she was happy, I believed that I would be able to live with my own selfish agony.

My future was my own, and I had choices. I would not end the life of the girl I loved.

I climbed down and turned my back on the peaceful view. My self-appointed duty began tonight. My face toward Forks, I began running.


	13. Chapter 13

XIII.

Seeing Edward at school wasn't nearly as awkward as my worst fears had suggested it might be. I should have known better, anyway - we only had two classes together, and the first one was gym. There wasn't time to do more than smile and give him a little wave from halfway across the room before I had to busy myself setting up my yoga mat in that class. In Spanish I had specifically chosen my seat to be as far away from him as possible. I moved a little closer this class period - much to the irritation, I was certain, of everyone else in class who had to keep moving as I changed seats - but I wasn't audacious enough to try sitting _next_ to him or anything.

He came over to my desk to talk to me - briefly - before returning to his brother and his usual spot. "Alice said your head is better," he greeted me.

I had stopped her during trig to thank her for helping Angela, and she had asked about my injury. "Mostly," I agreed. "That's why my hair is in a bun today - it's still very tender to the touch, so I thought a cushion of hair between my head and the world might be a good idea."

He smiled, though there was an undertone in the expression that I couldn't quite place. Sadness, maybe? "That does sound like a good idea. I'm glad there was no lasting damage."

"Me too. I really hate having a headache."

It was a commonplace conversation, but it put me more at ease. "See you later, Isobel," he said, turning back toward his own chair.

"See you," I agreed.

Tyler, already seated behind me, one arm bound in a cast, eyed us both speculatively as Edward walked away. "Looks like you and Cullen are getting friendly," he said, his tone not entirely approving.

"Well, he did kinda save my life. Probably, I mean," I pointed out. "It would be weird not to be friendly after something like that."

"I guess so," Tyler allowed, sounding less than enthused. "Uh - you aren't interested in him, are you? Because he doesn't really date…"

I shrugged. "No, I'm not especially interested in him in a dating sense." At least I was reasonably certain that I _shouldn't_ be, and I figured that if I told myself - and everyone else - that I wasn't, I might eventually trick myself into believing it.

Tyler let out a breath of air. "Okay. Okay, cool. Because, uh," he ducked his head, suddenly embarrassed. "I sort of thought maybe we could catch a movie this weekend. I know I owe you one after that accident."

"You don't make up for an accident with a _date_ ," I admonished him, amused. "Anyway, I already forgave you for that, remember? So you're going to have to come up with a better pretext."

He stared blankly at me. "Is...that a no?" he asked.

"No," I laughed, "it's a 'try again, but this time give me a real reason.'"

"Like what?" he asked.

"Like attraction," I offered. "Or...liking. I don't know. Something like that."

It took a moment for him to understand what I was saying, but then he grinned. "Okay, I think you're cute. You wanna catch a movie and maybe get dinner this weekend?"

"Sure, sounds like fun," I agreed, my tone playful. I sobered immediately, though. "Uh - I don't have much experience with dating. So I just want to be clear about everything from the very start: I'm not looking for anything serious or long-term. I just want to have fun and maybe gain some of the experience I'm lacking."

"Fine by me," he agreed easily.

I smiled at him, relieved. He was no Edward Cullen, but he was cute and it seemed like kissing him might be enjoyable. I needed practice kissing boys - my only kiss so far had been in middle school when one of my friends had moved away. I hadn't realized he had been harboring a crush on me until he pulled me outside and kissed me right after his going-away party. He had then immediately gone back inside, leaving me to walk home alone, bewildered. I'd never seen him again. It wasn't exactly a stellar dating history. I figured if I dated Tyler casually for a few months, maybe we could work up to making out and a little light groping. That was roughly as far as I was comfortable going at seventeen with a boy whom I wasn't - and didn't want to be - serious about.

Angela came in just as the warning bell rang. It was good timing in the sense that it allowed Tyler and I to hash out our date, but it was much later than usual and she didn't look entirely like herself. Her normally smoothly pleasant expression had been replaced by something that fell somewhere between anxious and depressed. She managed to muster up a smile as she sat down next to me, though. "You okay?" I asked her in spite of her obvious effort to appear normal.

"It's nothing," she said, shaking her head.

"Homework trouble?" I tried, probing a little. I knew she cared a lot about her grades, and, weird or not, my idea of getting Alice to help her had worked out really well in trig. It was always possible that I would have a similar epiphany if she needed help in some other class.

"No, no, nothing like that," she replied, dismissing my concern.

I let it go. Class was starting and I didn't want to push her if it was something she truly didn't want to talk about.

Mrs. Goff was just lecturing today, so, even though I knew I should be paying attention, I found myself doodling idly in my notebook instead, trying to come up with names for my truck. She was, as Charlie had assured me, just fine save for a small dent on one corner of her back bumper. I wanted a name for her that was classic, but that also captured some of her toughness - which meant it couldn't be _too_ common. That meant that names like Elizabeth and Emily were out. I liked Jacqueline, but it made me think of Jacqueline Kennedy - entirely too elegant an association for my pragmatic truck. I spent the whole period drawing a series of blanks and decided to go through my books when I got home. My selection was extremely limited at the moment, but I might stumble over something appropriate.

Angela seemed more honestly normal when class ended. We walked out to the parking lot together, chatting about homework, and she gratefully accepted a ride home - she only lived a few streets away and usually walked to school - since it was not only raining (which was normal for Forks), but there was also a particularly sharp-edged wind blowing. "I'm trying to choose a name for my truck," I told her as I backed out of my parking spot. A few spots down, Edward was watching me as he waited for his family, his expression melancholy. I waved and smiled at him to get him to smile in return. but his smile was sad, too. It occurred to me that he might have overheard Tyler asking me out. I felt a little bad since I was reasonably sure that he liked me, but it was probably better that he know immediately - letting him stew would be cruel.

"Do you make a habit of naming your things?" Angela asked me, clearly amused.

"Mmmm, only the ones that strike me as having personality," I replied as I shifted into gear and began pulling forward - only to stop again as someone I didn't know yet pulled out of a spot just ahead of me. "Plus she saved my life, you know. The truck, I mean."

"There's a certain justice in that," Angela agreed after a moment of thought.

"I just can't figure out _what_ to name her."

"Something from a book?" she offered.

"But which _one_?" I countered as traffic began moving again.

"That I don't know," she replied with a shrug. "I'm afraid you're on your own. I've never tried to name a truck."

I sighed and changed the subject. "Tyler asked me out before you got to Spanish today."

"I'm surprised he waited this long," she said, but she sounded a little concerned.

"What?" I asked, and then a new thought struck me. "Oh God, you aren't interested in him, are you?"

"No!" she replied emphatically, her eyes going wide.

"Okay, good," I sighed in relief as I pulled out on the road. "I already had to shake Mike off when I realized that Jessica liked him."

"Oh...well...Lauren _is_ kind of into him," Angela told me, sounding apologetic.

Damn, I swore silently. I already got the feeling that Lauren wasn't my biggest fan.

"She could have asked him out before and she didn't," Angel continued quickly. "So it's really her fault…"

"Or she could have _mentioned_ it," I replied. "Oh well, it's nothing serious. If she _still_ wants to ask him out, I won't complain."

Angela looked surprised.

"What?" I asked her, uncertain what about my statement was cause for surprise.

"You wouldn't care if Tyler was dating you _and_ your friend?"

"Not really. I like Tyler as a friend and I think he's cute. I'm not planning to, I don't know, marry him or anything. I just want to date him for a while. If he also wants to date Lauren, that's fine with me."

We were silent for a long moment as Angela considered that detail. "It won't be fine with Lauren, though," she pointed out at last.

"Yeah," I agreed reluctantly, wrinkling my nose in distaste. "Do you think I should cancel the date?" I asked her. It was hard for me to tell what I owed my friends, particularly the ones who weren't really my friends, and even more particularly when they were being stupid.

"No," Angela said after a moment of thought. I pulled up at the curb by her house and waited for her to finish. "I'm not even sure Lauren would have wanted me to tell you, so it's up to her to say something or not. I guess I just wanted to warn you. Lauren can be, um…"

A vindictive bitch, I supplied for her, but didn't say it out loud. "I know," I said instead. "I've already seen how she can be."

"Yeah," Angela sighed.

I tried to imagine what growing up in Forks was like for her, stuck forever with the same group of people - some of them petty and spiteful - to choose friends from. I gave an involuntary shudder and thanked any deity who might be listening that my mother had left. Not, I supposed, that it had done me _that_ much good. Still, anonymity was better than...Lauren.

"Thanks for letting me know," I told Angela. "It would have sucked to have Lauren treating me like crap and not knowing why."

"You're welcome," she replied with a ghost of a smile. "I hope you have fun with Tyler."

"Thanks," I repeated.

She opened the door and slid to the ground. "And thanks for the ride," she told me before closing the door. I waved my acknowledgment and pulled back into the street.

Charlie wasn't at home when I got there - no surprise - so I put together a fairly simple macaroni and cheese with vegetables and chicken, and put it in the fridge until it was time to bake it.

The rest of my evening was more or less equally uninteresting: I worked on homework until it was time to get dinner in the oven, ate with Charlie, flipped through a few books in search of a truck name, gave up and took one down to the living room to read while Charlie watched a game, and, when it was time, went up to my room to go to bed. Instead of getting into bed, though, I found myself standing at the window, staring out at the cloud-covered sky and wondering about mistakes. So far coming to Forks seemed like it had been the right thing to do. But there was a "but" in there somewhere. I wasn't sure that I was doing the right thing when it came to Tyler. Lauren would be angry. I didn't actually like him - not like that. And Edward was - or would be - hurt.

I wasn't stupid enough to think I was responsible for Edward's feelings, but it weighed on me for reasons I couldn't, or at least didn't want to, name.

I turned my back resolutely on the window. Some mistakes were worth making, I reminded myself, but some absolutely weren't.

Edward was - had to be - one of the latter.


	14. Chapter 14

XIV.

"I don't know why you're doing this to yourself - and me," Alice trilled at me, her voice even higher than normal with the force of her irritation. In her mind the future had ceased to be clear again. It was, in fact, an impenetrable tangle of dim possibilities. Many of them still ended in my demise, too often shortly after Isobel's.

I shrugged. "I'm sorry, Alice, but I can't allow either of the futures you saw to become a reality."

She frowned but handed me a dark-colored jacket. "No one is going to be looking for you, but better to be safe."

I smiled at her. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," she grumbled.

"I'm not _trying_ to give you a headache," I assured her. "I wish you could give me some clarity. This course - "

"Still not safe," she sighed in agreement. "Too much could go wrong." She bit her bottom lip unhappily, remembering her previous visions. _We were going to be friends_ , she thought at me sadly. _I know I don't actually_ know _Isobel, but...I miss her._

"I'm sorry," I whispered.

"Do what you have to," she told me, dismissing it. "At least you're still here."

There was that. I ruffled her hair and disappeared, heading for Isobel's house.

I had chosen my spot the night before. It wasn't inside - it wasn't even a spot from which I could watch her. I was her guardian, not her stalker. At least, that was what I was telling myself, and, to reinforce it, was denying myself the pleasure of her presence - even just her visible presence. Instead I found a place on the roof above her room and stretched out. I could hear her breathing from there, and even her heartbeat if I listened carefully. Those assurances of life and safety comforted me.

Tonight I could also hear her tossing and turning, sleeping restlessly. Regretting her decision to go on a date with Tyler? I smiled humorlessly at the low clouds that were steadily dropping rain on me. I could only wish. More likely she was excited and nervous about the date.

It had been difficult to listen to Tyler asking her out and I thought it was a testament to my self-control that the wretched boy was still breathing. The things he thought about Isobel - _my_ Isobel - made me want to...well, best not to dwell on it. I was going to have to follow them on their date, though. I was not about to leave her alone with Tyler for several hours entirely undefended. I would have to do better at resigning myself to the situation before then. If Isobel wanted to kiss him - if she wanted to - well, I couldn't imagine she would go further than a kiss on a first date. She had told Tyler herself that she didn't have a lot of experience. But if she wanted to kiss him, I had to let it happen. I could not swoop in and crush his worthless skull.

Sometime around midnight Isobel began talking in her sleep, which she had not done the previous night. It was fascinating, even though nothing she said made a great deal of sense. My name recurred once or twice, which pleased me, but it was mixed in with others of her classmates - Lauren, Angela and Tyler most notably. She also spoke very sternly to someone named Ophelia about the differences between laptops and airplanes once, so, all in all, I knew not to put too much stock in whatever she was dreaming about. Perhaps she had been reading _Hamlet_ before bed. Just the sound of her voice, though, and more particularly her voice saying my name, pleased me.

I went back home to shower and change into dry clothes a little before dawn. My siblings were waiting by the car when I joined them, all of them on some level disapproving of how I had spent my night: Rosalie still disgusted, Jasper still entirely uncomprehending, Emmett still amused by the absurdity. Alice...Alice thought I should have been _in_ Isobel's room, holding her in my arms and whispering assurances of love. I rolled my eyes at my usually-favorite sister. She of all of them should have known that Isobel didn't seem like the kind of girl who invited a boy she barely knew into her room. I doubted she would be too thrilled to find out I was in love with her, either, come to that.

School was torturous, as usual, only the nature of my torture differed: I wanted to be with Isobel and every moment spent away from her was maddening. I watched her helplessly through other eyes, hating everyone who interacted with her more freely than I ever could. Even in gym, a class we shared, I didn't dare more than a handful of glances the entire period because I didn't want to make her uncomfortable again.

By lunch my self-control was used up. I dressed quickly after gym and headed purposefully for the cafeteria. A quick mental search of the interior allowed me to ascertain that Isobel had not yet arrived, so I stationed myself outside the door and waited.

I was going to ask her to eat lunch with me. It was something friends did, wasn't it? My rationale was specious and I knew it, but I couldn't help myself.

After a few moments of waiting, Jessica's thoughts caught my mental ear. She was with Isobel and they were headed my way. I spotted them a moment later, their heads bent together as they walked. Isobel was telling her friend about her date on Friday - a little over a day away. My jaw clenched involuntarily and I had to force myself to relax. Jessica was, internally, concerned about Lauren's reaction - she had had her eye on Tyler for several months - but she was also pleased, more than pleased, that Isobel was going out with someone other than Mike. This led her to downplay Lauren's interest and likely anger.

"Isobel," I began when they got close enough.

Both girls looked up at me, surprised from their absorption in their conversation. _Holy shit!_ Jessica's thoughts practically shouted, and I tried not to wince. _Maybe Lauren doesn't have to worry about Tyler after all_ , her thoughts went on. _I_ heard _they'd been, like, socializing and stuff since the accident, but I couldn't believe it. That's definitely a first with any of the Cullens. And who would choose_ Tyler _over even the_ possibility _of Edward Cullen?_

I wished I could be as certain of my appeal as Jessica was, even though I shouldn't hope for anything of the sort. I also wished Jessica would leave. It would be rude to invite Isobel to eat with me while her friend was right there.

My second wish was at least granted. Her thoughts were reluctant, but she seemed to consider it her duty as a friend to leave Isobel alone with me. "I'll see you inside," she said, disappearing through the doors.

Perfect.

"Hey Edward," Isobel greeted me. "What's going on?"

Her tone was a bit reserved - certainly none of the babbling excitement I had detected in Jessica's thoughts. "I wondered - " I began, and then broke off with a scowl as Tyler caught sight of us. It was impossible to ignore his possessive hostility as it rolled off of him in waves.

He immediately changed direction and joined our conversation without being invited, his hand hovering just under Isobel's elbow. "Hey," he said to her, "sorry to interrupt, but just really quickly - do you want to sit with me today?"

A growl rose in my throat and I fought down with difficulty both it and my sudden urge to snap his neck.

"Um," Isobel said, shooting me an apologetic glance as she dealt with the intrusion, "I'd prefer to stay with my friends. If you'd like to join us, though, I would like that."

He grinned. "Yeah, that would work."

"It would be cool if you came too, if you want to," she said to me - much to Tyler's obvious irritation.

Was _she_ reading _my_ thoughts? Not likely - I was simply _that_ transparent. I raked my hand through my hair in consternation, my feelings at war with themselves. Of course I wanted to be with her, but to see Tyler dancing in attendance on her the entire period? I might be provoked into lashing out at him physically, or at least into saying something that demonstrated my feelings entirely too clearly. And then there was my family to think of - my siblings would not condone such irregular behavior, and they were already put out with me.

I shook my head slowly. "We can talk again at some other time," I told Isobel.

"Of course," she said with an encouraging smile. I felt like I was being patronized. "I can spare a few minutes after school lets out."

It was Tyler's turn to scowl.

"I'll see you then," I agreed, feeling mildly mollified.

The feeling evaporated as Isobel and Tyler turned to go. He caught her hand and practically dragged her away from me, staking his claim as clearly as he could. She looked amused by his vehemence, but didn't protest his clumsy attentions.

I hated him.

Were Isobel mine, I would not need to assert my prerogatives so crudely. Were she mine, I would make her so comfortable that it would seem natural to her to stick close beside me. Were she mine, I would shower her with gifts - anything she wanted - and when she used or wore one of my gifts, I would see tangible evidence of our connection.

Were she mine…

Were she mine, she would be in continual danger. Even out here, in the open air, I hadn't been able to avoid her delectable scent, though it had been mercifully diluted. My preoccupation with my feelings had kept the beast inside me under control, but it only took one moment of surprise or vulnerability to destroy that control and, with it, Isobel. Were Isobel mine, she would have to live every moment in fear of my weakness. I had no business hating Tyler and dreaming of everything I would do differently - everything I would do better. Because there were things I could never do better, and those things would always be a threat to her life.

I went inside, chastened.

It wasn't enough to keep me from waiting for her after Spanish. Alice was right - my chances of staying away from her entirely were dismally low.

"Walk me to my car?" she asked, waving goodbye to Tyler as he left us alone together with obvious reluctance. The final glare he cast back at me over his shoulder would have set me on fire if there had been any justice in his view of the universe.

"Sure," I replied, agreeing to Isobel's suggestion. There was nothing to say after all - I just wanted a few moments alone with her.

"What did you want to talk about?" she asked anyway.

"Nothing now," I admitted. "I was going to ask you to sit with me at lunch."

She chuckled, apparently pleased by my honesty. "I did invite _you_ to sit with _me_ ," she reminded me.

I grinned down at her. She blushed slightly and made a show of glancing at the cars around us to make sure none of them were backing out. Was it a good sign? I couldn't tell. Perhaps she found my smile predatory, which it probably was. Most things about me were predatory.

I pretended not to notice her reaction and went on the with the conversation. "I didn't want to sit with your friends, I wanted to sit with _you_. Would it offend you if I told you that there is nothing I particularly want to say to your friends?"

"Mmm, probably," she replied, casting a half-teasing, half-serious glance at me. "I _like_ my friends. If you don't like them - without even knowing them, I might add - then yes, I might be offended by that."

"I know them better than you think," I informed her. I knew them better than she ever could.

"Anyway," she went on, taking no notice of my objection, "I don't see that I'm much different than any of them. If you don't have anything to say to them, what can you possibly have to say to me?"

I let out a sharp bark of laughter, hoping she wouldn't notice it was more despair than humor. "Isobel Swan, you are _nothing_ like your friends. You are nothing like anyone I have ever met before. If I didn't know better…" I felt a real smile tugging at my lips and bent my head slightly so that she would hear me as I lowered my voice, "I might be persuaded to believe that you aren't even human."

She stopped walking and stared up at me with her wide velvet eyes, her cheeks red. I took a deep, deliberate breath, letting the fire of her scent burn through me. Definitely human. Alas.

"Says the magical cultist," she muttered abruptly, tearing her gaze from mine.

"The _what_?" I demanded before realizing that she hadn't meant me to understand what she said - that, in fact, human ears probably would not have been able to decipher it.

She blushed furiously, but cast a dark look at me. "Hmm," she said, taking note, no doubt, of yet _another_ hole in my story.

Too late to back out now. "What's this about magical cultists?" I asked her.

"Nothing," she replied, putting on an innocent air that wouldn't have fooled a child. She was still blushing, but she walked quickly toward her truck.

As though I was going to let her get away that easily.

Taking advantage of her refusal to look at me, I stopped at the passenger's door instead of following her around to the other side of the truck. She didn't notice until she turned to say something to me - probably goodbye. By then it was too late - I already had the door open and was climbing inside. Her fault for not locking her doors at school, though I understood why she didn't. No one would want to steal _this_ rusted jumble of iron and bolts - not if they wanted to get anywhere, at least - and I would choke down an entire human meal if her antique AM/FM radio even worked.

She wrenched her own door open. "Hey!" she protested.

"This seems like a private conversation," I teased her, though I was on fire with curiosity. "Now what were you saying about magical cultists?" The magical I got - from her perspective, some of what I did might seem like magic. It was the thing about cultists that confused me. Contrary to legend, vampires - at least self-respecting ones - did not engage in devil-worship.

"You weren't supposed to _hear_ that," she complained.

"But I did," I countered.

"It's...just a joke I have with myself," she sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose as though trying to ward off a headache. "It doesn't mean anything."

"A joke?" I asked, feeling even more confused.

She got in a pulled her door closed with a sigh. "Don't you...drive, or something? Shouldn't you be taking your siblings home?"

"Jasper has a key. He'll take them if they get tired of waiting for me."

"Leaving me to take you home," she grumbled.

"It isn't that far. I can walk," I replied impatiently, growing more curious by the second.

"Then you may as well start walking, because I'm not explaining it to you," she told me with finality. "If I had known part of your magic was super-hearing, I wouldn't have said it to begin with."

I watched her, making no move to leave, trying to decide what tactic to take next. Silence seemed like a nice, easy start. It stretched out between us for a long moment while I considered other angles - until it occurred to me that I was the only one growing uncomfortable. Not from the silence, of course - I had no trouble with silence. Instead it was the scent of Isobel's hair and skin, dampened from the perpetual rain, slowly saturating the cab of her truck. I stopped breathing, but knew that I didn't have the air or the time for an extended conversation.

Isobel didn't seem to mind silence, either - nor did she notice my discomfort. She was staring out the windshield with an abstracted expression on her face. I watched her, torn between staying in the hope that I might find out what she was thinking and going before the danger of her scent became too great.

Just as I had decided to open the door and leave, she spoke. "So...so far we have incredibly improbable good looks." She began ticking her points off on her fingers. "Some kind of ability to either see the future or move impossibly fast. Eyes that change color. Ice-cold skin. A body-builder in his mid-twenties masquerading as a senior in high school. And now super-hearing."

The place my stomach had once occupied seemed to hollow out as she fixed her eyes on me.

"Anything else you want to add?"

I shook my head mutely.

"On the other hand," she sighed, dropping her gaze, "I did promise you privacy. So I'm not seriously trying to find out what all those oddities add up to. I'm just making jokes about it in my own head. I'll tell you about my jokes when you're ready to tell me about your reality." She gave me a sharp glance. "Think you can handle that?"

I nodded, still finding nothing to say.

She gave me a relieved smile. "Good, because my jokes are kind of terrible."

Her self-deprecating comment finally gave me something to reply with. "I don't believe that for a second." Speaking used up my air, so I opened the door before she could reply, taking a grateful breath of the fresh breeze that swirled in.

"See you tomorrow?" she asked as I got out.

"Yeah," I agreed without enthusiasm. Tomorrow would be Friday, and tomorrow _night_ was her date with Tyler. I was already dreading it.


	15. Chapter 15

XV.

I made a face at the outfits spread out on my bed. Date-appropriate clothing was apparently not my forte. I had already texted Jessica three possibilities, and she had rejected all of them. My phone buzzed. I sincerely hoped she was sending me some sort of suggestion. Part of me was suspicious that, in spite of her verbal approval, she might secretly be on Lauren's side on this one and wasn't thrilled about helping me pick an outfit. I hoped I was wrong - I was fairly certain that I was - it was just that Lauren had been even worse than usual at lunch. Her caustic personality actively eroded my faith in humanity - even the parts of humanity I usually liked.

Charlie wasn't particularly enthusiastic about my date either, though he hadn't tried to forbid me to go - just muttered something about the Cullens that I hadn't caught or wanted to catch. The truth was that I was already having trouble focusing on the future. My mind kept drifting back to the past. More specifically - to my conversation with Edward.

I had considered Edward from a number of angles: as a threat, as an exceptionally attractive member of the opposite sex, and as the person who had saved my life. I had never _actually_ thought of him as a person whose simple company I might enjoy, though. Until today, our conversations had all been either commonplaces or related to my gratitude to him.

It had never occurred to me that talking to him might be... _pleasant_.

I sighed and looked at my phone. "Do you have _any_ skirts?" Jessica had texted. Then: "The dark jeans _might_ work, but you'd have to pair them with something a lot better than what you've shown me so far."

What did "better" mean in this context? I had no idea.

"And you would need to actually do something with your hair," she added.

Did drying and brushing it not count as "something"?

I was clearly really bad at this.

"Can you come over after school tomorrow and help me?" I texted back, hoping that the plaintiveness of the question would communicate itself through my unadorned words, and hoping even more than she really had chosen Team Isobel over Team Lauren.

"Yes!" she replied a second later, putting at least some of my doubts to rest.

Well, that was a relief. I dropped my phone onto my pillow, and fell back onto the bed beside it, heedless of the clothes underneath me. I wasn't certain I wanted to go on this date anymore, but it was probably too late to back out. It was just one date, anyway. Maybe I would discover that I liked Tyler more one-on-one than I had so far in a school setting.

That was a possibility, right?

It wasn't fair - Edward was already impossibly beautiful. What right did he have to _also_ be clever and funny? There had to be _something_ wrong with him. Maybe he was trying to lure me into the Pale Pretty People cult. Maybe my skin was already pale enough that their magic could make me look like them.

I laughed at that. I wasn't _nearly_ pretty enough to be part of _that_ cult.

Why _did_ Edward like me, though?

 _You are nothing like anyone I have ever met before._

I thought of Jessica, of Lauren, of June, of Ashley, of Angela. I wasn't _that_ different from any of them, was I? I hoped that I was nicer than Lauren, but Jessica was undeniably better at math than I was. June always knew exactly how to tell a joke. Angela was all-around awesome. How was I different? It didn't make any sense.

I closed my eyes and tried to picture myself from the outside, but I couldn't do it. Could anyone? I knew too intimately how my thoughts and actions fit together, and I couldn't reinterpret my actions independent of my thoughts. Did I _act_ so differently, though? I knew I spoke a little differently - chose words that were larger or more precise. It didn't seem like much of a reason for Edward to find me uniquely interesting, though.

I fell asleep pondering the issue, and had to spend my time before school the next morning ironing the clothes I had crumpled in my unconscious tossings and turnings.

Now that I was unsure whether I was looking forward to my date or not, school of course zipped by. I caught Edward looking at me several times, but he didn't offer me more than a bare greeting in either of our classes together, and he wasn't waiting for me at lunch. Not that I had expected him to after I had shut him down - just - maybe I had wanted him to. A little. Maybe. I wouldn't have been comfortable agreeing to eat with him - just him - though, so it was probably better that he had given up.

Jessica followed me back to my house after school, bringing with her a small bag completely filled with makeup and a few pieces of jewelry. She clearly didn't trust me to have any of either, which was wise. She did, at least, approve of my selection of products for my hair.

I showered and let her put in some mousse and leave-in conditioner, and then blow-dried my hair like always, eyeing the growing pile of makeup she was sorting through as I did so. "I'm not sure about any of that," I told her as I turned off the blow dryer. "I don't really...wear it."

"Trust me, I know," she said, rolling her eyes with something like tolerant amusement. "Hear me out. I don't have any foundation or concealer that would work for you anyway - and besides, you definitely have nice skin, so you don't really need it. I thought maybe just a little eyeliner and mascara, and some lip gloss. It will look fairly natural, but also, since you never wear makeup, like you actually put some effort in."

It sounded like something she had put a lot of thought into, so I acquiesced - I hoped gracefully. She painted my face and then arranged my hair to her liking - with a low part on one side of my head that left me constantly pushing the cascade of hair on the other side out of my face. "Stop that," Jessica admonished when she saw me doing it.

"I can't see," I complained.

"You can see through one eye," she corrected me.

"But then I have no depth perception!" I replied.

She laughed at me. "Yeah, because depth perception helps you so much."

She had a point.

Deciding on an outfit took longer. Apparently my wardrobe was severely deficient in what Jessica considered to be basic necessities. She finally allowed that a silky blue blouse I owned, paired with my single pair of black jeans "wasn't _completely_ hopeless" and informed me that she was coming shopping with me the next time I bought clothes. I actually thought that might be helpful. My mom was still stuck in the peasant-blouse bohemian thing that had been popular almost a decade ago, and not only was it out of date, it wasn't me at _all_.

The bustle of getting ready helped me get a little more excited about my date. I banished Edward from my mind and focused on giving Tyler a chance. It didn't take getting along too well to enjoy kissing someone, so I didn't need the night to be perfect. I just needed to come out of it able to tolerate him. And that was only if I wanted to continue dating him. There could always just not be a second date.

It would be interesting to see how he was outside of school.

Charlie eyed me suspiciously as I saw an enthusiastic Jessica out the door, but found nothing in my attire to actually object to. "Make sure you're home by ten," he admonished, playing up the part of the disapproving father.

"Dad," I told him, trying not to roll my eyes, "I will be home when I'm home. Better than being home by a set time, I'll tell you where we're going, what we're seeing, and I'll text you if our plans change at all. If you get worried at any point, _you_ can text _me_ , and I promise to answer as long as it's not during the movie. Which," I added thoughtfully, "should probably be finished by nine. That way you'll know if something is wrong, because if it weren't I would get back to you."

He thought it over. "Your mom lets you go out without a curfew?"

"It's never been an issue with dates because I haven't dated, but with friends - yeah, this was pretty much how we worked it out." I smiled at him. "Come on, Dad, would you rather know when I'm going to be home, but not know anything about what I'm doing between when I leave and get back. or would you rather know exactly what I'm doing, but not exactly when I'll be home?"

He thought it through in his slow but steady way. "You may have a point," he conceded at last with a sigh, but then shook his finger at me. "I'm trusting you, Bells."

"You have no reason not to," I told him. "I'm very sensible, you know."

A smile pulled at his mouth. "I know. So...a movie, huh? You're going to Port Angeles, then."

"Which is why I probably _won't_ be home by ten. A movie and then dinner - it will be at least ten-thirty, and probably more like eleven."

He nodded. "What're you seeing?"

"Superhero movie," I answered. "I'm not into romantic comedies." I wasn't exactly into superheroes, either, but I wasn't exactly _not_ into them. It was the only thing playing that I thought I would have any interest in, and Tyler had been pretty enthusiastic when I had suggested it.

"Not very romantic," Charlie commented.

"It's a first date. I'm not expecting a lot of romance." I continued before he could comment on _that_. "Tyler says there's a drive-up diner in Port Angeles. We're planning to eat there."

Charlie ran his hand through his hair a few times, thinking it over. "Alright, Bells. I'll wait up for you and you know I have to work tomorrow, so try not to be out too late."

"Sure, Dad." I glanced at my phone. Tyler would be arriving soon. "Are you going to make him come to the door and do the whole overbearing father thing?"

He lifted one eyebrow at me. "He knows he's going a date with the police chief's daughter, right?"

"He'd be a huge idiot if he hadn't put it together."

"Then I don't think I need threats."

"Thanks, Dad." I thought he would be embarrassed if I hugged him, so I just smiled.

My mom treated me more like a friend than her daughter and wanted to hear all about what I was doing in the same way I expected the Jessica would call tomorrow to hear about my date. Actually, for that matter I fully expected that my mom would wake me up in the morning, unable to wait any longer to hear how it had gone. It was a given that I had told her about Tyler asking me out and that I had agreed to go. She knew about everything that was going on in my life except my confusion over Edward - and I only hadn't told her about him because some of it involved the weird stuff about his family.

Charlie was different. I wanted to respect the difference, but I was also accustomed to a degree of autonomy that respected my ability to make my own choices. I trusted that Charlie's motivation was an honest desire to see me happy and unharmed, but it was also my life and my body. I didn't need his approval to do what I wanted with both.

It happened that what I wanted for myself wasn't _very_ different from what he wanted for me. I preferred to be careful about most things.

Tyler texted me to let me know he was outside.

"Okay, Dad, I'm going," I told him. "Try not to worry, okay?"

"Okay, Bells," he said, his tone wry.

I left with a wave.

Tyler seemed nervous on the drive to Port Angeles and we had difficulty conversing naturally. I started by joking around that it was lucky that his car was an automatic or he wouldn't have been able to drive with one arm out of commission, but that seemed to remind him of the accident, which made him feel bad. It wasn't the most auspicious start to the date, but I worked at it, asking everything I could think of about Forks, his interests, his family and his friends. None of it was terribly exciting and some of it was depressingly predictable - like the fact that we had practically no interests in common - but it was certainly more comfortable than silence.

The movie obviated the need for conversation and was pretty good in its own right - the dialogue was fairly well written. Some of the fight scenes ran long enough to get tedious, but I liked the new trend of setting fights on moving vehicles. The additional danger made everything more dynamic and added another layer of excitement and interest. I could only watch so many buildings get destroyed and roads get torn up before it all started to seem very much the same.

In any case, the movie gave us a solid twenty minutes of conversation material, even though we noticed entirely different things about it. Tyler wanted to talk about badass character costumes and moves, while I wanted to pick at plot holes and recall particularly effective lines. Thankfully each of us gave a little and spent some time listening to the other person's thoughts, which made it a lot better than the drive to the theater.

"It's so cool that you like superheroes," he repeated for about the fifth time as we pulled into a spot at the drive-up. "Most girls don't, you know."

I didn't know. My friends in Phoenix had been fairly obsessed with them - far more so than I was. It didn't seem worth arguing about, though, so I made a show of studying the menu. "Want me to get dinner?" I asked Tyler. "You paid for the movie and gas to get here, so it seems like it would be fair."

He stared at me in blank surprise for a moment. "Oh. I...guess if you want to."

"It's no problem," I assured him. I supposed from his reaction that splitting the cost of dates wasn't yet a _thing_ in Forks.

We placed our order and I got out the cash to pay for it. I hadn't spent much since my arrival and Charlie was scrupulous about giving me an allowance, which was good since I still needed to get myself a bookshelf. I would probably have to go to Seattle for that, though.

I pulled my thoughts back to my immediate surroundings as I realized we had lapsed into silence again.

Tyler smiled at me a little shyly. "You're a really cool girl, Isobel."

I shifted a little uncomfortably, not quite understanding the compliment. "Thanks," I replied warily.

"Hey, you want to hear a joke?" he asked suddenly.

"Okay," I shrugged. At least it was something to talk about.

"Do you have DSL?" His enormous grin put me on my guard all over again, but it seemed like a fairly innocuous question.

"Sure. Is there even any other kind of internet in - "

"You have dick sucking lips?" he cut me off, snickering.

Oh God. How did that even count as a joke? "Really?" I demanded. "No one recognizes 'DSL' as an acronym for 'dick sucking lips.' If you're going to make a joke like that, it has to be an acronym people actually _use_."

This made him pause for a moment. "The guys at school use it," he told me triumphantly.

"Your sample size is miniscule and non-random," I countered.

It occurred to me belatedly that he might not understand the point I had just made as his brow furrowed. "Well…" he said, "I guess girls don't really tell jokes like that, so you wouldn't know."

"Of course girls tell jokes like that," I scoffed. "Actually - June just told me one a couple of days ago. Here, let me show you how a double-entendre _should_ be made." I composed the joke in my mind, trying to remember every detail of June's delivery. I leaned forward slightly. "It's a riddle, okay?"

"Okay…" he agreed slowly.

"What's _long_ and _hard_ and _full_ of seamen?"

He turned bright red and choked.

"A submarine," I said innocently, answering my own question. Then I lowered my voice a notch, trying to imitate June's suggestive purr. "Why, what were _you_ thinking of?"

I straightened again as he coughed - partly, I thought, so that he wouldn't have to look at me. "See? Now _that's_ a double-entendre, and it was told to you by a girl, who was told it by _another_ girl. I don't know why you think girls don't tell dirty jokes."

Tyler still didn't seem to be in a position to reply to me or defend his assumptions in any way, so I took it on myself to offer up a defense for him. "Maybe there's a reason people don't usually tell dirty jokes in mixed company, though. Too embarrassing?"

" _You_ don't seem embarrassed," he managed at last, his tone almost accusing.

 _Neither did you while you were telling your joke_ , I almost replied, but our order arrived at that moment, interrupting whatever had been about to follow. Maybe it was for the best - arguments were fun, but not if they got too heated. We kept our conversation confined to the meal as we ate, and managed to stay on neutral subjects like homework and teachers on the way home.

At last Tyler pulled up at the curb outside my house. "I had a good time," he told me.

"Me too," I replied, thinking that it was at least half true.

We stared at each other for a second, and I had the time to wonder a little wildly whether he would actually go through with kissing me. But then he leaned forward and I did the same. It was the moment of truth - I found his company more or less acceptable, though somewhat tedious at times. If I really liked kissing him, though, I didn't see a little thing like not particularly wanting to talk with him getting in the way of at least a few more dates.

Our lips touched, and I felt neither fireworks nor revulsion. A warm tingle of mild interest buzzed somewhere in the vicinity of my stomach.

That wasn't terrible, but it probably wasn't enough to get me interested in going out again, either. "Well - " I began as he pulled back slightly, intending to say goodnight and end the evening.

He surprised me by leaning in again for another kiss. This time his hand went to my ribs, his thumb just brushing the lower curve of my breast. I might have believed it was accidental - until he deliberately began to caress me lightly through my bra.

I shoved him away. "What are you doing?" I demanded.

We stared at each other, probably looking about equally bewildered, for several seconds.

"You...said you just wanted to have fun," he said at last, sounding torn between confusion and irritation.

Another beat of silence as I tried to contextualize his statement. "I think we have very different definitions of _fun_ ," I said at last. I opened the door and hopped out before he could reply. My cheeks began to flame with a complicated blend of embarrassment and anger as I marched across the lawn, praying I wouldn't sprain an ankle in the dark.

I stopped on the front porch to take a couple of deep breaths before going in, hoping to calm myself and avoid worrying Charlie. I could tell by the light in the front window that he was, as promised, waiting up for me.

I opened the door and went in slowly. Out of the corner of my eye - I refused to look at him - I could see him studying me. "How did it go?" he asked from his chair, his tone darkened by whatever he saw on my face.

"Ugh," I replied, closing the door again and leaning back against it.

"Hmmm." He paused thoughtfully. "Do I need to make threats now?"

I waved that away. "No, nothing like that. It was mostly just tedious, and he was a little pushy at the end. Nothing I couldn't handle. Don't worry, we won't be going out again."

"I see," he said levelly, reserving judgment.

"Dad," I sighed, "I think I've been mistaken about some things."

"Like what?" he asked.

"Well, I thought dating was supposed to be fun - at least in high school. But it's more complicated than I thought. I'm...not actually sure I like it." I wrinkled my nose, still annoyed at Tyler.

He was quiet for a moment, and then one side of his mouth pulled up in a smile. "Relationships can be complicated, Bells, no matter what age you are."

I made a face at him. "I'm going to bed."

"Sure thing. Goodnight."

"Goodnight, Dad." I turned my back and climbed the stairs slowly. I was tired, but I wasn't convinced sleep was actually a possibility - not yet, anyway.

I took a quick shower to make re-parting my hair easier, brushed my teeth and got into my pajamas. Once again, though, I found myself drawn to the window instead of the bed. The wind had picked up since I came home and rain pattered against the glass in short bursts.

Charlie wanted me to date Edward. Edward pretty clearly had a thing for me. I might have a thing for him. "But would have been different with Edward?" I asked myself aloud, keeping my voice low to make sure that my dad wouldn't hear. I felt so confused, and it seemed like a fundamental question. Was dating really not that much fun, or had the boy I _dated_ not been that much fun?

There was no way to know the answer, at least not without quite a bit more data - data that I was now more nervous than ever about attempting to collect.


	16. Chapter 16

Note: Some of these chapters are getting awfully long - it's always hard for me to decide whether to try to keep my chapters uniform or just to put in everything that needs to go into them. Usually I lean toward the latter, but the crazy anxious person inside me who wants everything consistent or in some sort of neat repeating pattern winces when I inevitably start allowing my chapters to grow longer and longer. I'll give that crazy section of my personality some credit: it becomes a little problematic when I'm updating on a schedule. A chapter is a chapter no matter how long it takes to write. If I start going over 5000 words, I reserve the right to skip updates so that you only get one for the week.

Luckily that's not this week.

This chapter covers Isobel's date from Edward's (and, thanks to his mind-reading thing, Tyler's) point of view. I think it's necessary to have both sides in this case and I hope there's enough new material to keep it interesting. Let me know if it's too redundant, though, and, if so, I'll try to avoid being quite so...thorough...in the future.

* * *

XVI.

I followed Tyler's car, jumping from tree to tree. Any other night I would have stationed myself at my usual post on Isobel's roof, but I knew from the conversations I had spent the day eavesdropping on that Jessica would be helping Isobel get ready tonight. It would be too easy to find myself looking through her eyes at an inopportune moment as Isobel got dressed or undressed. Too easy - too easy to do accidentally, and too easy to do on purpose. Whatever I was, I was not Tyler Crowley. I had no intention of taking advantage of Isobel for my own pleasure.

Tyler was about equal parts nervous and excited. In spite of what Isobel had told him about not having much experience with dating, he had the vague idea that girls from larger cities were free with sexual favors. I tuned him out briefly while he reflected on his own sexual experience - I didn't want or need to know what had happened to him in the back of his car, and I was afraid I might kill him if he started picturing Isobel as a participant in any of his memories. I couldn't help gathering that he still considered himself technically a virgin and wanted very much to change that status.

Disgusting.

I arrived at Isobel's house a little ahead of Tyler and approached hesitantly, unsure whether she was finished getting ready - but yes, she was downstairs talking with her father. I could hear their voices and some of Charlie's thoughts, even though I discovered for the first time that it was difficult to look through his eyes. Everything he viewed came across little hazy and indistinct. It would have been dizzying had I been human.

"What're you seeing?" Charlie asked Isobel. I couldn't hear what he was thinking, but I felt the pride, love and fear in it - he was not pleased by Isobel going out with Tyler.

I supposed that made two of us.

"Superhero movie," she answered him, her tone implying a shrug. "I'm not into romantic comedies." It didn't sound, from my perch, like she was much into superheroes, either. I wondered who had chosen the movie.

"Not very romantic," Charlie said, sounding pleased.

Isobel chuckled. "It's a first date," she told him. "I'm not expecting a lot of romance." If that was the case, Tyler was going to be disappointed. I was glad - but also a little worried. I didn't know how he would take disappointment on this particular point. It was good that I would be following them.

They continued their conversation, going over where Isobel and Tyler planned to eat and whether Charlie wanted to meet him. Tyler pulled up about the time they had finished working it out and texted Isobel. I shook my head disapprovingly. If I ever had the chance to take Isobel out, I would go to the door like a proper gentleman and offer her father my _own_ reassurances of her safety.

Although - whether those reassurances would be honest or not was another matter. How could I offer him an honest promise that she would not come to harm when I was among the dangers in the world most likely to harm her?

Isobel opened the door and stepped outside. She looked different than usual, with her hair arranged to fall in a glorious cascade of chestnut across her forehead and over one shoulder. There was makeup around her eyes and on her lips, which I cared less for, but she was wearing a lovely deep blue blouse that caressed the curves of her torso, almost managing to make me jealous, for the first time in my existence, of an inanimate object. Against the blue her skin looked like rich cream and there were glints of fire in her hair wherever the light touched it.

She had never looked so devastatingly beautiful, and it was all for another man.

The wretched Tyler didn't even properly appreciate her appearance. His eyes went immediately to her breasts and he noticed - disappointed - the lack of visible cleavage, utterly missing the more subtle beauties of her body: the lines of her collarbones, the slender curve of her waist, the arch of her neck. I wanted to kiss her right at the place where her jaw met her delicately contoured ear, and desperately wished I trusted myself so close to her.

She got into the car and he at least had the grace to compliment her appearance, even if it was slightly insincere.

They were going to Port Angeles for the movie, which meant taking the highway. I could have followed them closely enough to listen in on their conversation in my car, but I likely would have been noticed and I very much disliked driving as slowly as most humans drove. Instead I had decided to go on foot, which would actually be faster as I cut cross country in a straight line. There was no reason to worry about Tyler taking Isobel off somewhere else - I saw no intention of it in his thoughts and, in fact, he was very much looking forward to the movie.

I followed them through Forks and to the highway in order to be safe, but once there headed east, cutting though the Olympic National Forest. It was a wet night, as most nights were in January, but there was nothing about it to deter _me_. In fact I wished the run were more interesting or difficult in some way - it was hard to keep my thoughts off of Isobel and what might happen on her date.

There was only one theater in Port Angeles, and that showing second-run rather than first-run movies, so I had no trouble finding it. I actually arrived several minutes before Tyler and Isobel and found myself fidgeting nervously as I waited, afraid that something about their plans had changed. I knew precisely how unlikely it was, but, even without actual malice on Tyler's end, car accidents were always a possibility. I didn't think that Isobel would put up with any reckless driving, but I could hardly say as much about any of the _other_ drivers on the road.

At last, however, my quarry arrived, Tyler babbling at Isobel about some flag football feat he had allegedly pulled off sometime in middle school. She looked patient but bored, which cheered me. Tyler paid for their tickets and they went in to the movie.

Tyler's attention was centered on Isobel throughout the previews, but he quickly became engrossed in the action once the movie started and ceased to think about or look at her. It was frustrating - I wanted to know what she was thinking, as always, but I would have settled for the opportunity to read her face. I wondered if they would sell me a ticket to a movie that had already started and how much of a risk actually going into the theater would be. How would Isobel react if she saw me? Would she realize I had been following her?

I regretfully decided against it - she was entirely too perceptive, and I did not think she would appreciate being followed, no matter my intentions in doing so.

Besides, I reminded myself sternly, I was here for Isobel's protection, not my own pleasure or peace of mind. It didn't matter if I couldn't see her face. Knowing what she thought of a movie was not relevant to my purpose.

After the movie they went to a drive-in diner to eat, Tyler enthusiastically recounting the details of every last gunshot and explosion - or at least so it seemed to me. He was pleased that Isobel had wanted to see the movie with him - and I saw as he thought of it that it had been her idea - and even more pleased as she picked out details that had escaped him. They weren't things he actually cared about, but he had the impression that girls didn't like action movies or superheroes, and so any interest from Isobel was enough to leave him feeling like he had won some kind of jackpot.

Isobel offered to pay for dinner, a gesture which surprised me almost as much as it did Tyler, and I was inclined to think less of him for accepting. Paying was the gentlemanly thing to do. His confusion was honest enough, though - it had never crossed his mind that he _shouldn't_ pay for everything, but her offering to do so made him worried that perhaps there was a regional difference or a difference in the way things were conducted in small towns like Forks versus larger cities. His reasons for not wanting to offend her if that were the case were petty and selfish, but the desire to avoid offending was real enough.

The conversation seemed to drop off again after they had placed their order. For a two hour movie, it seemed to me that they had covered it surprisingly quickly. Isobel seemed distracted by her own thoughts, and Tyler cast about a little desperately for something to say. At last he found something - a joke he had heard earlier in the locker room.

I actually groaned out loud when I realized what it was - not even a real joke, really just a reason to talk about sex in a way that would embarrass the person on the receiving end of the question.

Isobel, it seemed, agreed. She was not embarrassed - instead she sounded incredulous, unimpressed, and perhaps mildly annoyed. "No one recognizes 'DSL' as an acronym for 'dick sucking lips.' If you're going to make a joke like that, it has to be an acronym people actually _use_ ," she told Tyler tartly.

"The guys at school use it," he argued, at least as annoyed as she was. He thought it was because she hadn't laughed - hadn't even pretended to laugh - but I suspected that it had more to do with her lack of embarrassment. Whether he admitted it to himself or not, Tyler was feeling increasingly intimidated by Isobel's intelligence and the sophistication he imagined he saw when she did something like offering to pay for dinner. The fact that he couldn't even cow her by referencing sex point-blank made him feel even less in control.

"Your sample size is miniscule and non-random," she replied without hesitating, losing him entirely while I stifled my laughter.

Tyler didn't even try to decipher her meaning, instead searching for a way to regain his mastery of the situation. "Well…" he said, "I guess girls don't really tell jokes like that, so you wouldn't know."

I cringed on his behalf, knowing that Isobel wasn't going to let something like that pass. "Of course girls tell jokes like that," she scoffed. Just not to boys, I added silently for her. "Actually," she continued, "June just told me one a couple of days ago. Here, let me show you how a double-entendre _should_ be made."

Hm, well, it seemed I was as wrong as Tyler when it came to making assumptions about _one_ girl - I should have known that _Isobel_ would be equal to telling a dirty joke to a member of the opposite sex. Of course, it was mostly just to prove a point - she didn't go around telling them as a general rule. But I would bet my favorite car that she was perfectly capable of telling one with an entirely straight face as long as she was in pursuit of a point she wanted to make.

It would have been a good bet had I had anyone to make it with. She leaned toward Tyler, taking a breath that brought her small but very shapely breasts into prominence. Tyler could, at last, see down her shirt a little - an opportunity he would have taken full advantage of mere moments before, but was suddenly too intimidated to enjoy now. I was grateful - my vision was tied to his as long as I was tuned in to his thoughts. I did not want to stare down Isobel's shirt, at least not like this, without her permission or knowledge, but I also couldn't tear myself away from the spectacle that was unfolding before me.

Her voice was as velvety as her eyes as she spoke. "What's _long_ and _hard_ and _full_ of semen?" she asked.

Tyler choked, and I simply forgot to breathe.

"A submarine," she replied in a more natural tone, but with a flirtatious lift to her lips. "Why," she continued, her tone becoming suggestive again, "what were _you_ thinking?"

Ah - not "semen." " _Sea_ men."

If it had been possible for me to blush, I would have.

"See? Now _that's_ a double-entendre," she told Tyler with a sniff. I couldn't disagree. I wondered how I had missed hearing the joke before. I supposed I had a natural tendency to avoid...indelicate matters. And perhaps, as well, girls were as likely to canvass such indelicate matters in the privacy of locker rooms as boys were. I did my level best to stay out of the thoughts of those who were involved in changing before or after gym, so I had no way of knowing.

Isobel continued, reminding Tyler that _she_ had just been the one to tell to him, and hammering home the point that it had been told to _her_ by another girl. Tyler, meanwhile, tried desperately to pull himself together, feeling horribly ashamed that he was more embarrassed about a dirty joke than his date.

Their order of food arrived just in time to keep him from lashing out at her.

His feelings troubled me - it seemed to me more and more apparent that he was not a safe person for Isobel to interact with one-on-one. He resented her intelligence and independence, and resented even more her unwillingness or inability to fall in with the social norms he had never thought to question. She threatened his understanding of his place in the world.

Of course - I had to admit that she challenged my ideas of propriety as well. I had lived too long and too intimately with Alice, Rosalie and Esme to suppose that women could be essentialized based merely on their gender. On the other hand, however, I was aware that I harbored old-fashioned ideas about the roles people ought to take when _socializing_. I was not resentful that Isobel was comfortable flouting these, but I did find it shocking - paralyzing, even - when she chose to do so.

This evening had certainly turned out to be instructive.

Tyler managed to compose his feelings while he ate, reminding himself that he still hoped to sample Isobel's physical charms. On a deeper layer of thought, he was contemplating letting everyone at school know what happened between them in order to ruin her reputation when he was finished with her. He considered these thoughts mere fantasy, but I could sense a degree of intentionality behind them. It was a course he was considering and was trying it out in his imagination to assess how guilty he thought he would feel.

Isobel seemed entirely unaware of the menace he represented. She engaged happily in talk about homework and listened to his opinions of the various teachers at school, occasionally offering up her own observations but largely deferring to him as the more experienced party. Her deference mollified him somewhat, even though an educated observer - like myself - would have realized its origins were entirely rational and had nothing to do with Tyler's authority as a man. Isobel was no doubt working off the principle that Tyler had lived in Forks his entire life and had more experience with its inhabitants than she did.

It apparently failed to occur to her that he was also immature and unobservant, and that she might still have the upper hand when it came to analyzing the _why_ behind the _what_ and the _how_.

The time had come for the date to end, which meant that it was time for me to leave the two of them and make my own way back to Forks. Though doing so had not bothered me on the way to Port Angeles, if Tyler intended to abscond with Isobel or to take her somewhere where he would have the privacy to assault her, I judged he would do it now. There was no movie to hurry towards and she had seriously disturbed his sense of who he was and where he belonged in the grand scheme of the universe.

I sifted carefully through his thoughts, looking for any hint that she was in danger, but he seemed conscious of the fact that she was the daughter of Forks' police chief. Though he had very little doubt that she would be ready and willing to allow him most of the liberties he had in mind, she had also warned him at some point that her father would be waiting up for her and expected her home well before midnight. He consoled himself by reflecting that it was only a first date, and there was no need to see a movie next time, which would free up considerable time. Exactly what he _did_ intend to try getting away with when they got back to her house he hadn't entirely settled on, but nothing that would take long or rumple her clothes too badly.

I left before he angered me enough to act on my desire to drag him from the car and beat him senseless.

Once again I arrived before the two of them did, though the margin was narrower this time. I just had time to climb the convenient tree that stood to one side of Isobel's window when I heard Tyler's thoughts and, a moment later, the engine of his car in the distance. He came around the corner and pulled up beside the curb outside her house, parking behind her truck.

My vantage point gave me a clear view of the interior of the car, though the angle was too high for me to see either of their faces. It wasn't a problem; I only truly wanted to see Isobel and I had Tyler's eyes for that.

Now that the moment of truth had arrived, Tyler was nervous. "I had a good time," he told Isobel, half-wishing that she would take charge _now_ \- even though it also would have embarrassed and shamed him terribly. I rolled my eyes at his unshakable stupidity.

"Yeah, me too," Isobel replied

He waited a beat to see if she was going to simply leave, and found his courage again when she didn't. He leaned in -

I had to very carefully unwrap my fingers from the branch I held before I crushed it and sent it crashing to the ground. I quickly removed myself from Tyler's head. Part of me regretted the necessity. There was every reason to believe that I would never feel Isobel's lips against mine in reality. This, however, was not an experience I could passively share with another man without going insane - probably homicidally insane.

Of course, it also meant that I couldn't judge Isobel's reaction. I stared down through the windshield of Tyler's car, trying to figure out what was happening without actually being able to see her face.

His hand went to her waist, his thumb pressing into her breast, and I felt my face twist into a snarl.

Then her muscles went rigid, and there was no stopping myself. I dropped to the ground, a single word beating in my mind.

 _Kill_. I would _kill_ him.

But Isobel was already shoving him away as I began moving toward the car, and he didn't fight her. I could see through the windshield at a better angle now - could read their faces - even though I couldn't stand the thought of looking through Tyler's eyes and mind again just yet.

"What are you doing?" I heard Isobel demand.

"You...said you just wanted to have fun," Tyler answered, clearly still too bewildered to feel the anger that I knew had to be coming.

They stared at each other for a beat before Isobel's brow furrowed with anger. "We have very different definitions of _fun_ ," she replied, immediately getting out of the car.

Damn - I zipped away before she could spot me, hiding myself behind the trunk of the tree that had sheltered me a few seconds earlier. I forced myself back into Tyler's head, even though I could clearly hear Isobel tramping across her front yard, tripping over every bit of unevenness she encountered in the dark. Just as importantly, I could hear that Tyler hadn't followed her.

It didn't mean that he wouldn't plot some sort of revenge on the way home, though.

He was still too stunned to follow her or plan anything, but he started his car up again as Isobel disappeared inside and pulled slowly away from the curb, anger beginning to tinge the fog he moved through. I climbed back up the tree and followed him, jumping from treetop to treetop, thankful that Forks had more or less been carved directly out of the unbroken forest that had once covered the Olympic Peninsula.

His thoughts weren't entirely coherent as he drove home, but they returned over and over to his original plan of getting even with Isobel by telling everyone what they had done together. Now that nothing was going to happen - I could see him slowly talking himself into the decision. The only part he was wavering on by the time he made it back to his house was whether he should lie about what had happened and try to paint Isobel as promiscuous, or if he should go the other direction and try to make sure she never got another date again by making her out to be frigid and rude.

Either way, the stories might hurt Isobel, and I needed a plan to stop them. My first impulse was to break Tyler's jaw so that he couldn't tell anyone anything. My second was to _threaten_ to break it if he spoke. In spite of my personal desires, however, I suspected that what I needed in this instance was social engineering rather than force. There were ways to discredit Tyler's story, for instance, though the complicated social structures formed by adolescents - and perhaps adolescent boys in particular - meant that a girl would not be able to do it. Even if Isobel's friends rallied around her, they would not be able to stop rumors from spreading.

Of course, thanks to my ability to read Tyler's thoughts, it wouldn't be terribly difficult to ensure that I was nearby whenever he began telling his story. On what basis could I claim to know the truth, though? I could assert that Isobel had told me, but it seemed risky - if word somehow got back to her, she would know I had lied and would wonder how I knew about it at all. Besides, I might be suspected of having a personal stake if I claimed that Isobel had told me directly. I needed a layer of distance between us, but my source had to be reliable…

I called Alice.

"I don't see grave-digging in my immediate future, so your evening must not have gone _too_ badly," she chirped at me.

I ignored her. "Alice, can you arrange some time with Isobel and get her version of how the date went out of her?"

"You're _asking_ me to spend time with Isobel?" she practically squealed.

"Clearly I am," I sighed.

"Hmm." I waited while she sorted through visions of the future. "Yes, I think I can come up with something," she said after a moment. "But Edward - I have conditions."

"Of course you do," I rumbled. Hadn't she just been complaining about not being able to befriend Isobel? What could she possibly want now?

"You don't get to take this back," she told me, her voice serious. "This is the point of no return. Cancel now or forever hold your peace. From here on out, Isobel is as much mine as she is yours."

I growled involuntarily at that.

"Not in the same _way_ ," Alice giggled. " _Obviously_."

In the background, Jasper, who was apparently listening in on our conversation, made a crack about ménage à trois that he would _never_ dare repeat in my presence. Even so, I was aware that I was overreacting. Alice didn't want Isobel as anything other than a sister.

"I know that," I ground out. "Get the story out of Isobel." It would have helped my peace of mind if I could have seen Alice's visions of the future, but this was necessary. If Alice and Isobel had to become friends, I had to believe it was for the greater good.

"Okay, then. What I need from _you_ is two tickets to the play that the theater troupe in Port Angeles is putting on this month. There should still be some available for this Sunday's matinee. You can drive over in the morning."

The request didn't make sense, but I didn't question it. Alice had her own ways of making things happen. I promised I would have the tickets for her as early as possible and got off the phone.

Time to go back and see how Isobel was faring.

I ran back to her house and climbed up the tree outside her window. The angle was oblique and showed me only a small part of the room, but the door happened to be within my field of view. She came in, dressed for bed, as I settled myself on a branch. Her eyes moved restlessly over her possessions and then fell on the window. For a moment I was afraid she had spotted me, but no - she wasn't interested in the leafless tree.

She walked forward almost unwillingly, giving the clouded sky a dirty look. Then her shoulders dropped and she seemed to become lost in thought for a long moment. How I wished I could read her mind!

Her brow furrowed and her lips parted slightly. She shook her head, responding to some internal prompting. "But would it have been different with Edward?" she murmured to herself. Her fingers tapped absently against the windowsill as she stared out the window, lost in her musings.

Her musings about _me_.

For the briefest moment my chest cavity seemed to warm with something akin to life. I yearned toward her - and then I realized what I was doing.

She had not spoken _to_ me, she had spoken _about_ me. If I revealed my presence, she would not welcome me with open arms.

She would be furious.

That was, after all, why I hadn't asked permission to follow her on her date, wasn't it? Well - I couldn't have told her about my ability to do so, of course, but even if I had been able to, she would not have accepted my protection willingly.

And why should she? I realized for the first time that she had found herself in precisely the sort of situation I had followed hoping to protect her from - and she had handled it herself. In fact, my following her, if known, might very well be interpreted by her as just as intrusive as Tyler's hands on her. Our motives differed, it was true, but our actions abruptly struck me as uncomfortably similar. I had believed, at the outset of this evening, that honorable motives were enough.

I was suddenly uncertain that they were.

I waited until she turned away from her window, not wanting her to see movement where none should be, and then climbed down. The place on the roof where I had spent the last few nights seemed to beckon me, promising that my sudden guilt and uncertainty wouldn't mean nearly as much to me while I was listening to Isobel's breathing and, perhaps, the things she spoke of while asleep. I gave it a long look - and turned and went home.


	17. Chapter 17

Note: This is my first chapter that's officially over 5000 words. It also happens to coincide with the end of finals week, which may mean I have more time. At the moment I'm working 8 chapters ahead, which is a month on this update schedule, and I don't want to lose any more ground. So this is how it's going to go: if I can get through the chapter I'm working on now before Wednesday morning, I'll post the next one on schedule. If not, you'll have to wait until next Saturday.

* * *

XVII.

I rubbed my eyes, which still weren't resigned to the glare of the fluorescent lights in the grocery store, and stifled a yawn. As predicted, my mother had called me bright and early to demand the details of my date with Tyler. I had confessed more to her than I had to Charlie, including that he had tried to feel me up, and probably more than I would confess to any of my other friends, barring maybe Angela. Being my mother and all, she had been indignant on my behalf, but had also congratulated me on my assertive handling of the situation.

"You're so much smarter than I ever was," she sighed affectionately.

"Nah," I teased her, "just more stubborn."

"That too," she agreed with a laugh.

It was only six-thirty when she woke me up - she had forgotten the time difference, which was _just_ like her - but I hadn't been able to go back to sleep. So here I was, out doing my grocery shopping for the week at eight in the morning on a Saturday.

I sighed and scratched my head with my pen, trying to decide what kind of fruit I wanted for lunch for the week. The selection in the middle of January in a middle-of-nowhere town like Forks wasn't exactly overwhelming me with options _or_ quality.

My eyes reached the rather sad display of apples and stuck there, though it took me a moment to fully register why. Alice Cullen was standing at the display, carefully turning over and discarding pieces of fruit. It was such a weird, random thing - I hadn't ever pictured one of the Cullens in a mundane setting like this. Somehow I had assumed that they had someone normal to do their shopping for them. Or that, like people in a movie, they exchanged lines of dialogue over their food without ever actually eating it.

Come to think of it - I'd never actually seen them _eating_ during lunch, at least I didn't think I had. There were so many other strange things about them that I had unconsciously assumed that the food at school didn't fit into the cult diet, or something - hell, it almost didn't fit into _my_ diet, _or_ my definition of food, and I wasn't even part of a cult of perfection.

I shook off my surprise. Alice hadn't spotted me yet, but, though I was hardly at my best, the polite thing was probably to go and make smalltalk with her for a minute or two.

"Hi, Alice," I said, leaving my cart and coming around the fruit stand.

She looked up and a smile lit her pixie-perfect face. "Hi Isobel!" she piped, sounding much too excited for how early it was in the morning.

"I guess if you always shop this early, it explains why I haven't run into you before. Do you usually do the shopping for your family?" I grabbed a produce bag, although I was leaning more towards buying oranges than apples.

"Oh, no," she answered. "Esme - my mom - is sick, so I volunteered." I glanced towards her cart. Sure enough, she had a bunch of cans of chicken soup, cold medicine, and, it looked like, ingredients for more soup. I would have gotten tired of that much soup really quickly, but to each their own, I supposed.

"That's nice of you," I told her. "I always do the shopping - and cooking - when I'm staying with Charlie." I rolled my eyes affectionately. "He can't cook to save his _life_."

She giggled, making me think improbably of windchimes, but quickly sobered. "Hey, I'm actually glad I ran into you. Maybe you could help me with something - if you don't think it's weird."

"What is it?" I asked, torn between wariness and interest. With the Cullens, I felt, "weird" had about an equal chances of meaning something utterly commonplace to a normal person, or something that was _really_ out there.

"Well, Edward got me and Esme tickets to a play in Port Angeles for our birthdays - they're close together," she explained. "But the play is tomorrow, and now Esme is sick. I don't really want to go by myself, but everyone who would _want_ to go - like Edward - is busy with something else. Jasper _would_ go with me, but he doesn't like that kind of thing, not really." She let out an improbably large sigh for such a tiny girl. "Anyway, it seems like you're into literature and stuff, I've seen you reading and Edward mentioned it, so I thought maybe you'd want to go with me?" Her expression was a picture of hopeful enthusiasm.

It was a little weird since we didn't really know each other, but I could see why she might want to ask me. We had at least _spoken_ in a purely social context, which might be more than she could say for anyone else in Forks. Plus Edward might have told her about my self-imposed vow of non-curiosity. "That sounds like it might be fun. What's the play?"

" _A Doll's House_ , by Henrik Ibsen. I've never seen it, only read it."

"Me too, but I really enjoyed it when I read it," I told her, starting to get a little excited. Of course Port Angeles was just a small town and its actors might not be any good, but it was still a _play_ \- meant to be seen.

"Then you'll go?" Alice asked, clapping and bouncing on the balls her her feet.

"Sure," I laughed. "Who would turn down a free play? What time tomorrow?"

"It's a matinee, so it starts at two. You'll be home in plenty of time to get a full night's sleep, promise."

"Guess I had better get my homework done today."

"Probably so. I'll come by and pick you up about twelve-thirty, if that's okay."

"That's fine." I almost asked if she knew where I lived, but she didn't ask for my address and Forks was a small town. It wasn't a stretch - especially with Charlie being the police chief and all - for her to know where my house was. I did give her my number, though, just in case anything came up.

My shopping trip ended with me in a much better mood than I had started it with. I was still tired, but the promise of seeing a play had lifted my spirits so much that I suspected I had been a little depressed either by my date with Tyler or by Forks in general. It hadn't occurred to me before, but I _was_ missing the discount tickets to plays, symphonies and even the occasional ballet that my mom had sometimes managed to scrounge up. Or, at least, since we only went a few times a year, I was missing the _anticipation_ of such events. I didn't think Charlie was one to actively search for sales or for raffles that offered tickets as prizes.

Then there were the art galleries. My mom was a big fan of art galleries, and whenever we couldn't think of anything else to do on the weekends, we had gone to look. That had tapered off a little when she started dating Phil, but seeing as Forks didn't even boast an art gallery...

Yes, I was very glad that Alice had asked me to see a play with her.

Jessica called me to talk about my date as I was putting away groceries at home. I surmised by her initial tone and the fact that she became more cheerful as I told her, in general terms, what had gone wrong that Lauren had called her to complain or chastise or otherwise have an unpleasant conversation with her. "So," I concluded, shoving boxes of pasta into the pantry, "I don't think I want to go out with him again."

"Can't win them all," she replied philosophically.

"Apparently not," I agreed.

"You won't mind if Lauren asks him out, will you?"

I highly doubted that Lauren would care whether I did or not, but I could see how being caught in the middle - again - might be uncomfortable for Jessica. "Not in the least," I answered. "Only - do you think I should tell her about my date? About him being pushy?"

Jessica was silent for a moment. "You can do whatever you think is best, but you _know_ she's just going to assume you're jealous."

"Yeah…" I sighed, weighing my conscience against my desire not to provoke and unpleasant conversation with Lauren.

"Besides," Jessica added with a giggle, "I'm not sure Tyler would _survive_ trying to make Lauren do anything she didn't want to."

She had a point - I couldn't see Lauren getting pressured into anything, either. "Alright, I'll leave it alone, then," I decided.

We talked a little about homework and then got off the phone so that I could _do_ mine.

Charlie seemed more than just okay with letting me go to a play with Alice when I asked him about it over dinner - he appeared actively pleased. I supposed that made sense - he liked the Cullens, and he like them even more after Edward had saved my life. Maybe he was thinking that if I made friends with Edward's sisters, I might become more interested in Edward himself.

Alice picked me up on time on Sunday. I had been expecting the silver Volvo the Cullens usually drove to school, but Alice had a pretty little blue sports car that looked like it had been designed for someone exactly her size. If they all had their own cars, in _addition_ to the one they shared for going to school, maybe the Cullens spending upwards of a hundred thousand dollars to adopt all of them wasn't so far-fetched after all. Either Dr. or Mrs. Cullen must have come into a marriage with an independent fortune, though, because I had _seen_ Dr. Cullen and he looked like he was _just_ out of medical school. There was no way, no matter how much he was being paid or had been paid in Alaska, that he could afford really nice, new, shiny cars for all of his children on his salary.

Well, I supposed it wouldn't be a proper cult if money weren't involved somehow.

"I'm really excited about this," I told Alice as we headed for the highway. I could see why _she_ wasn't the one driving her siblings to school every day. The thought of Emmett trying to fit into a car where the roof only cleared _my_ head by three or four inches made me smile. "I'm even more excited than I thought I'd be."

"I'm glad we got to do it, then," Alice responded.

"I feel bad for your mom, though."

She waved it away. "I can go see something with her any time, practically. I'll buy tickets to something myself to make up for her missing this." She smiled at me. "If you enjoy yourself, though, you should tell Edward when _your_ birthday is - he would probably get you tickets to something. Then you could invite me along and return the favor!"

I laughed, thinking that if Edward bought me tickets to something, he would probably want to go with me himself. "My birthday isn't until October," I told her.

"Too bad," she said with more cheer than the words usually received. "If you like the troupe in Port Angeles, the tickets aren't too expensive. They usually only put on shows during the winter and spring, though, which is unfortunate." She stuck out her tongue, making her look even more like a child. "It's a nuisance to have to drive all the way to Seattle just to see live theatre."

I wondered, sliding my hand along the leather upholstery of the seat, what "not too expensive" meant to her. "Do you see things a lot, then?"

"Well, not a _lot_ ," she said, slowly. "Maybe once or twice a year."

"Probably a lot more often than most people."

"I suppose that's true. More often than when we lived in Alaska, too," she trilled, sounding pleased. "Forks isn't so bad in that respect."

"Where did you live in Alaska?" I asked her. She tried to describe the location without a map as a visual aid, and we spent a while swapping stories aimed at amazing each other with the differences between the states we had lived in. I wouldn't have guessed it from the way they looked and dressed, but the Cullens sounded very outdoorsy - completely different from me and my mom. Charlie could at least point to the regular fishing trips that got him out of the house. Alice didn't _look_ like the kind of person who would enjoy tramping around in the mud and whatever else one tramped around in while camping - and Rosalie seemed even less like the type - but she assured me that her family went camping, hiking, and even backpacking together very regularly.

"You'll hardly see us at all any time the weather is nice," she told me.

I shook my head. "I just don't see the appeal."

She cast a sly sideways look at me. "Well, it is more enjoyable when you're not inclined to trip over every tree root and pebble on the path."

I laughed. "Yes, okay, I can believe _that_ much, at least."

She joined in my laughter. "Maybe if your dad had taken you camping when you were young, your balance would better now. It would have provided practice, or something."

"Or," I countered, "I would have fallen in the first river I came across and drowned."

"Or that," she conceded. "Well, I'm glad that didn't happen. Otherwise you wouldn't be here with me!"

I agreed and we lapsed into silence for a few minutes. We were getting close to Port Angeles and I didn't want to distract her as she tried to find the theatre and parking.

Alice seemed to know exactly where she was going, though, lending credence her her story of coming fairly often to see plays - if I had doubted it, which I didn't. The theatre itself was a low building, painted blue, and fairly unimpressive from the outside. It wasn't in the charming part of Port Angeles that was the only part I had, previous to this, seen. There was a small parking lot attached, though, which was useful since it was, as usual, raining.

There was still a good half hour until the show started, but there was no point in sitting in the car. We gave our tickets to the woman watching the door and went in. Most of the seats were still empty. Alice chose two that were right up front. "One of the disadvantages of being shorter than basically everyone else," she said with a rueful smile, "is that it's hard for me to see over people in front of me."

"I can see how that would be annoying," I agreed.

"So," she went on, changing the subject, "I know you like to read, but that can't be _all_ you do with your spare time - even if I also know you aren't spending any of it hiking."

"Well," I allowed, "it's definitely not all I do in Forks. I don't have that many books here with me, and the library - "

"The less said about the Forks library the better," she giggled.

"My thoughts precisely." I paused. What _did_ I do with my time? "There's homework, of course, and I always cook for Charlie - that takes some time."

"Yeah, but those are just chores. I did specify _free_ time."

"I do _like_ to cook," I protested. "Angela and I are actually trading lessons. I taught her to make tortillas last weekend."

"That sounds fun," Alice said brightly, but didn't ask any more about it. "What else, though?"

"I've been spending a lot of time with my friends, I guess - a lot more than I did in Phoenix. But, then," I added thoughtfully, "I guess I also have a lot more friends than I did in Phoenix."

"Why is that?" Alice wondered. "I would think that in a bigger city, at a bigger school, it would be _easier_ to find friends."

I shrugged. "No one noticed me much there. And then - I was taking some accelerated college courses, too, so I had a lot more homework and stuff to do. I didn't have time for as many people, maybe." Another thought occurred to me. "And my mom was there," I added, hearing the wistfulness in my own voice.

"Sounds like you're close. It must be hard to be away from her," Alice said, patting my shoulder lightly. I couldn't feel through my jacket whether her skin was as cold as Edward's, but I assumed it probably was.

"It is," I sighed but then forced myself to smile, "but I think she's happier this way. I had her all to myself for almost seventeen years. It's probably fair if Phil - my stepfather - gets a turn."

"Did you leave because of him?" Alice asked, looking fascinated.

"In a manner of speaking," I said lightly. "He's a baseball player, you see, so he has to travel. Renee couldn't go with him because she had to stay home with me, so…" I shrugged. "I sent myself to live with Charlie. That's probably fair, too. I know he's always been a little hurt that I haven't ever wanted to live with him full time." I made a face. "It wasn't anything personal - I love him, of course, it's just that, on the one hand, Renee is my best friend. On the other, I'm not that impressed with small-town living."

Alice was nodding. "I don't know what I would do if Esme and Carlisle ever lived separately for any reason. I'm not sure I would be able to choose."

I decided that I had spent enough time talking about myself. "What about you? What are your interests?"

She looked a little surprised by the question. "I like to read, too...but when I'm home, I guess I spend most of my time designing clothes - especially lately. Rosalie and I work on it together, and make some of our own stuff."

"Wow, really?" I asked. I had never met someone my age who did anything like that. "Do you want to go into fashion design or something?"

"Oh, no," she laughed. "Nothing like that." She paused thoughtfully. "In terms of career, I think I might like marine biology. The things they pull out of the deep sea are _fascinating_."

I had run across a few online and could whole-heartedly agree. "Those are very divergent interests," I observed.

"I suppose they are," she said as though she had never considered it. "I just like what I like."

"Just like everyone else," I agreed.

She smiled, and then gave me a sparklingly impish look. "Would you like to know what _Edward_ likes?"

"Ummm," I replied, and hoped I wasn't blushing.

"He thinks the _world_ of you, you know."

"I don't know why," I muttered, certain that I _was_ blushing.

"I do," she assured me gleefully. Then she sobered for a moment. "None of the others understand it - not even Carlisle and Esme, though they're glad - but I understand. You challenge him."

"We've hardly had more than a single real conversation," I protested.

"Because no one can ever observe another person without speaking to them directly," she replied, rolling her eyes. "Well, asked for or not, I'll give you one hint: ask him about music sometime."

"Why?" I asked.

"Because his knowledge of the subject is encyclopedic and his taste impeccable. Trust me - just ask."

"Next time I get the chance," I promised, a little bewildered.

The lights dimmed, then, to signal that the play was starting soon, and I turned my attention to the stage gratefully. If nothing else, the dimmer light should help to hide my blush.

Soon the play began, and a little after that I was no longer thinking of Edward. The acting was hardly world-class, but it didn't feel like a bunch of complete amateurs had gotten together and decided to put something on for kicks, either. It was generally competent, allowing me to focus on my enjoyment of the story.

I thanked Alice for inviting me again as we were leaving. "Hopefully we get a chance to do it again sometime," she told me. "Since we're already here, would you like to grab some coffee or something?"

I agreed, with the caveat that I didn't drink anything caffeinated after noon. Most coffee shops were bound to have tea, though, so I had no problem with the plan in general.

It was already dusk as we left the theatre and drove into the quaint portion of Port Angeles, but it made all the shop windows that much more appealing. Alice found a parking spot right in front of the cafe she wanted and we went in.

Alice was interested in trying tea - it surprised me that she never had - so I told her what I liked and we ended up ordering the same thing. She chose a table flanked by arm chairs in one cozy corner of the cafe, and I joined her after adding honey to my tea. "You're sure you don't want sweetener?" I asked her as I sat down.

"I'm not a fan of sweets," she replied.

I tried not to stare, unable to conceive of not _liking_ sweet things.

"I heard you had a date last night," she said, giving me one of her mischievous looks over the lid of her cup as she raised it for a drink.

My cheeks heated and I knew I was blushing again. She seemed to be able to do that to me. "I didn't know you'd heard about it."

"I have _ears_ , you know," she responded. "I couldn't _help_ hearing about it. _Everyone_ was talking about it."

"Well, you were asking about Edward, so…" I shrugged.

"From what I heard, you weren't very serious about Tyler, so I figured that if you decided you liked Edward more, no big deal."

That was a good point. "True, I wasn't too serious about Tyler."

"Past tense - not a good sign," she observed with a laugh.

"Hmmm, yeah…" I admitted. "It...wasn't a very good date. We didn't have much to talk about, and then...well, he tried to push his luck afterward."

"That's no good," she said, her tone disapproving. "One of the things I knew right away that I liked about Jasper was how...polite he was. Good manners last a lifetime."

It was the first time I had heard her talk about her relationship. In fact, I had almost managed to forget how strange it was that five - well, four, since Edward was the odd-man-out - people living together as siblings were romantically involved.

I didn't know how to respond to her comment about Jasper. There were so many things I wanted to ask. Did they share a room? Did their parents care if they were sleeping together? What if they broke up? What if she got pregnant? None of them were things I could reasonably say to a relatively new acquaintance, though. "It must be odd," I said carefully, "living with someone you're dating when you're only seventeen and - I presume - eighteen."

"Well, probably," she said thoughtfully, "but it's what I'm used to, so I don't really notice."

"I'll bet when the Cullens adopted all of you, they didn't foresee _those_ kinds of relationships forming."

She looked startled but hid it quickly. "I suppose not. They're glad we're together, though."

Strange.

"I see," I replied, unable to think of anything else to say about it that wouldn't be some sort of intrusive speculation.

"Tell me more about Tyler. You're friends, right? Why was it hard to talk?"

"We're only friends in the 'go to school together and talk about school things' sense. Turns out we don't have much in common beyond that," I answered, and then went on to recount some of our topics, including some of the stories he had regaled me with on our drive to the movie - some of which I was certain were entirely made up and most of which were about sports.

Alice was laughing by the end. "I'm surprised you didn't call the whole thing off after just that," she said.

"Well, I could tell he was nervous and I wanted to give him a chance, and besides, like you already said, I wasn't serious about him. I thought maybe we could spend some time having fun together - seeing movies, having dinner, doing...other...date...things…" I couldn't come up with anything else people did on dates. Mini-golf, maybe? Dancing? Were there any places to do either of those things around Forks?

She shook her head at me. "Oh, Isobel," she trilled at me, "that doesn't sound like _nervous_ \- at least not past the first fifteen or twenty minutes. It sounds like _self-centered_."

I couldn't exactly argue. "It was better after the movie, though. We talked about it - argued a bit about good jokes, which was entertaining…"

She smiled at something I'd said and quickly took another sip of her tea to hide it.

"What?" I asked.

"Nothing," she replied a little too quickly and with a little too much amusement in her voice. "Are you the kind of person who doesn't like to kiss on a first date?" she asked.

"Oh no, not at all," I answered. "I didn't see much point to having the date at all if I didn't get to kiss him at the end of it. It's just that he _also_ tried to feel me up."

"Ewww," she half-squealed, her nose wrinkling in distaste.

"So...that was it for my first real date."

"Well, at least you know what you _don't_ want," she offered philosophically.

"One thing I don't want," I corrected. "I'm sure there are a lot more things I don't want."

"That's true."

We fell silent for a moment, both staring abstractedly into space. "Do you think Mike will ask you out next?" she asked.

"You've heard about _that_ , too?" I groaned.

"Don't feel bad," she piped, "I actually hear about a lot of things."

"I don't know that he likes me very much - I think I was just interesting to him while I was new. And anyway, Jessica has been pursuing him pretty hard, so he should be occupied with her. I hope."

"Hmmm, I think I've heard more than you have."

"No," I denied - I did _not_ want to end up between Mike and Jessica. "Not really. Really?"

"Afraid so. I wouldn't be surprised at all if Mike asked you to the Valentine's Day dance."

"But I heard that was a girls' choice dance here," I protested.

Alice fixed me with a look that made it clear she didn't think even _I_ could be _that_ naive. I buried my face in my hands.

"Well I won't _go_ with him," I told her, my voice muffled. "You know," I continued without giving her time to respond, "I thought that being new and having a lot of attention would be an _advantage_ , socially speaking.

She laughed her curiously chiming laugh. "Most people seem to think it's an advantage to be offered a lot of chances to date people."

"Even when they're people that their friends like?" I countered.

"Still a measure of popularity, right?" she responded.

"I don't want to be popular. I just...want to have _friends_. Which I'm not going to if every girl at school is mad at me because every _boy_ at school can't separate _liking_ from _fascination with novelty_."

"I'll be your friend," Alice assured me with another pat on the shoulder. "But, um, if you want to keep your other friends, maybe you _should_ go after Edward."

It was my turn to laugh and I raised my head so that I could shake it at her. "No one may be _actively_ pursuing him anymore, but I'm not sure that managing to get his attention when he's turned down so many other people would endear me to anyone."

She grinned at me. "Approval of one's peers is _highly_ overrated."

"Says the self-exiled eccentric," I muttered.

Her smiled only widened. "You about ready to get going?"

I had finished my tea, so I nodded. We got up and tossed our cups in the garbage can by the door. Alice had been drinking fairly steadily, but hers made an unusually solid _thunk_ as it landed in the bottom. I frowned. That was...strange. But maybe she hadn't finished as much as I thought she had. Maybe it had gotten cold before she could finish it. Or maybe she hadn't liked it, but hadn't mentioned anything in order to spare my feelings. Tea wasn't for everyone. Phil was always teasing me and my mom that he couldn't understand our obsession with hot, slightly bitter water. (My response: it was a good thing he had no palate to speak of if he was going to let my mother cook for him regularly.)

Still...odd.

Well, add it to my ever-growing list. It wasn't the strangest thing about the Cullens. Probably not even in the top ten.


	18. Chapter 18

XVIII.

"Alice - " I could hear the pleading note in my own voice.

She heard it, too, but just shook her slender finger at me. "No, Edward. _No_. I told you: no take-backs. You asked. Now I'm doing it."

"But - "

"But _nothing_. She's going to be _much_ happier when you stop that rumor before it starts. You know it as well as I do."

I did. I could see it in her mind. "But - "

"Jasper?" she sighed.

A heavy hand landed on my shoulder. I turned my head enough to glare at him. "Less than a week ago, you wanted to _kill_ Isobel."

"And now Alice wants to be friends with her," Jasper replied in the lazy drawl he often fell into when we were out of the public eye, refusing to see my point.

"I'll remember how she looked for you when I get back," Alice told me with a little wave as she headed out the door, trusting that Jasper would keep me from following.

As if I hadn't already seen the entire grocery store conversation in her visions.

I sighed. As if I wouldn't want to see it _again_ once the interaction had actually happened. I was lying to myself if I thought otherwise.

"Better head to Port Angeles," Jasper told me, squeezing the shoulder he still gripped in a way that would have felt friendly if it hadn't been an implied threat.

Good intentions or not, I was outnumbered, and Alice was right - Isobel would be hurt if the wretched Tyler spread his rumor, no matter which way he decided to go with it, in no small part because _some_ of her friends, most notably Lauren, would actively promote it. Maybe taking action was permissible this once, even if the reason I could _take_ action had been a serious breach of trust.

I shook off Jasper's hand and went out to the garage.

Alice was already home when I returned - no surprise since the grocery store was much closer - and I gave her the tickets I had acquired. In return she remembered her conversation with Isobel for me, her mind lingering on every one of Isobel's expressions, who looked tired. It worried me that she had, apparently, slept poorly, but I wouldn't have been able to do anything about it had I been there anyway.

Then I went running.

I had most of one day, a night, and then most of a second day to kill before I would see Isobel even in Alice's memories again. If I stayed in Forks, I would find a reason to go looking for her - of that much I was certain. As Alice had warned me, I could not stay away - not for any length of time, not even when I knew that she was likely to be displeased if she ever learned of my covert surveillance. Someday I hoped I would be able to confess it to her and ask her forgiveness.

In any case, I had to stay out of Forks until I could either see Isobel directly - and legitimately - or until I could get word of her from Alice. And so I ran.

The Olympic Peninsula was not a large enough range for me. I could run to Seattle in a little less than two hours, even with the Puget Sound in the way. I was less buoyant than creatures of flesh-and-blood, so, given a stable surface, I could run across the bottom of a body of water as easily as I could across dry ground. Otherwise a lungful of air helped keep me from sinking straight to the bottom, and I could swim.

Today, however, I had no interest in Seattle. There was a large provincial park north of Victoria on Vancouver Island; I set my sights there and I ran. I wondered, as the miles fell away beneath my feet, whether there was anything in Victoria that Isobel might like to have. The trouble was in giving her the potential gift, however - it was not her birthday, at least as far as I knew, and Christmas was just past. It would be unusual for a friend to give another a gift out of the blue. If I stopped, I would likely find something - perhaps numerous somethings, possibly expensive - that I wanted to give her. So I didn't stop - just ran.

The scenery of the park wasn't so different from what I might have found in the Olympic National Forest, or at any other park in the Pacific Northwest, but I stubbornly forced myself to tour the sights, all the while thinking of little beyond Isobel: what she might have made of the waterfalls and pools, what she was doing, whether she thought of me even a tenth as often as I thought of her. Though cold, there was still a great deal of greenery. I had evidence that Isobel didn't like the cold, but did she appreciate a landscape far more verdant than the one she had left? The greenery pulled at my clothes and stuck in my hair as I wandered, but there was no one to see me or intrude upon my thoughts. It was, after all, the end of January.

I stayed all night - a long, lonely night.

At the first glimmer of dawn I allowed myself to turn my face towards home with a sigh of relief, trying not to wonder whether this was going to become a weekend routine. If I allowed myself to look that far ahead, I thought I might go mad.

I arrived at the house just as Alice was getting ready to leave to pick up Isobel. Thankfully the temptation to follow her was relatively minor. As long as my sister was with Isobel, I trusted her physical safety. My longing for her presence, though intense, was more controllable.

I showered while Alice finished her preparations and left, eager to rinse the inevitable dirt and mud off of myself and get into dry clothes.

Emmett, Jasper and Rosalie were spread throughout the living room as I went downstairs. Carlisle I could hear in his office, contemplating an exegesis of the Mahabharata. He had been studying ancient Sanskrit recently. Esme was in their bedroom, sketching plans for a minor remodel.

My siblings were similarly engaged in pursuits fairly typical of them. Emmett and Jasper had switched from chess to Go and so far Jasper was winning handily, perhaps because Emmett was busy considering whether or not he could talk Jasper into taking their favorite cars out to a little-used road to race. He had lost the last race, but that had been some three months ago, and Rosalie had made improvements to his engine since then. Rose was flipping through the touch-screen computer that Alice kept downstairs and used mostly for clothing design. Though Alice of course used a stylus for drawing, Rosalie and Esme - the best engineers in the family - had still altered the screen to make it sensitive to cold vampire touches, making it easier to use casually. She went from drawing to drawing, trying to imagine how various elements might be combined into something new, and what fabrics and colors might create the effects she wanted.

They all - quite studiously - ignored me as I went to the piano. There were two partially completed pieces on the music stand. I examined them carefully...and then balled both up and threw them in the nearby wastebasket. The man who had started them was not the same one who was looking at them now, and I no longer felt sufficient sympathy with him to continue his work. I had entirely neglected my music in the two weeks since meeting Isobel, and my tastes - at least in my own compositions - had changed irrevocably.

I had no desire to compose now, however, with my feelings in such disarray. Instead I began to play, my favorite pieces flowing naturally from one to the other. In a very real way, I sought to test the old adage that "music has charms to soothe the savage beast." Vampires were more beastly than any animal, and I felt particularly savage these days. I lost myself in the music, brooding silently over Isobel and my lack of a future with her. I hardly noticed when Esme stole down the stairs and curled up on a nearby chair to listen. Of all my family, she was perhaps the fondest of music - even more than Alice, who could often be enticed to sing for me.

My fingers never tired, and so I had no need to pause - not until I heard, in the distance, Alice's returning thoughts. It was dark by then. It struck me with a pang that if Alice was returning, it meant that Isobel was alone and unguarded.

I forced myself to bring the piece I was playing to an elegant finish, and by the time I had Alice was walking in the door.

She brought Isobel's scent with her, making my head swim. My long absence from her had almost made me forget, but now it lit my throat on fire. I bared my teeth in a silent growl against my own terrible, disgusting, unthinkable desires. Just to prove that I could, I sucked in breath after breath of that air laced with Isobel's deadly scent.

 _Hmmm_ , Esme thought in surprise, recognizing an unusual degree of appeal in the aroma. I closed my throat on the growl that was my automatic response. Esme, of all my family barring Carlisle, was the least likely to harm Isobel.

I turned to look at Alice.

She smiled at me. _I just_ love _her, Edward._ "So you had better not hurt her," she went on aloud.

I _did_ growl at _her_. "I know that better than you do," I snapped.

 _Touchy, touchy_ , she taunted me. _One would almost think that you don't even_ want _to see the way she blushed when I teased her about you._

"You did _what_?!" I exploded, leaping at her.

She danced away, laughing, and hid behind Jasper. He turned his most intimidating glare on me, unsure, based on my emotions, just how serious I was about killing his wife.

 _I_ wasn't sure just how serious I was.

"Alice!" I snarled at her.

"Alice," Esme sighed from the other side of the room, "stop tormenting your brother."

She stuck her tongue out at me but dutifully began remembering, from the very beginning, her day with Isobel. I let my head fall into my hands, concentrating as hard as if I needed concentration in order to remember every last detail.

She really _had_ teased Isobel about me, who really _had_ blushed. Alice half-heartedly tried to hide her reasoning from me, but it was too uppermost in her mind. My actions had left the future uncertain and off-balance, but for one tantalizingly firmer possibility: if Isobel decided _she_ wanted _me_ , all the resolution in the world would not stop me from pursuing her. I loved her too much - or not enough - too selfishly, anyway - for that.

"Damn you, Alice," I grumbled at her.

"I want my second sister," she told me with a sniff, and began recounting her day for the others, who were waiting to hear about it in the normal way with emotions ranging from mild irritation - Rosalie - to rapt fascination - Esme and Jasper.

Esme flitted to my side and put her hand on my arm halfway through Alice's recitation. "Do you think you could find a reason to invite her somewhere that I could meet her, Edward?" she asked me in an undertone. "She sounds like a sweet girl."

I sighed and shook my head slowly, hating to disappoint her. "What would we do? Go out for dinner? You know it would be difficult to keep up the act in a setting like that." I could just envision myself and Isobel sitting across from Esme and Carlisle. Even if we ordered food and forced ourselves to eat - a disgusting proposition - her sharp eyes would no doubt catch even the slightest grimace of reluctance. For the same reason, I could hardly invite her back to the house. We didn't even own _beds_ for heaven's sake.

Esme frowned, but accepted the justice of my concern. "I understand," she told me, her eyes downcast and her voice little more than a whisper.

"I'm sorry," I told her, hoping she would hear the truth of it in my voice. As much as I wanted to keep Isobel out of my world, I wanted almost as badly to share those I loved with her. That Esme wanted to know her, too - was a difficult temptation to resist.

Esme patted my arm soothingly, though, trying not to think about how much she longed to meet the girl who had so captivated one of her beloved children. "I know you are, my darling," she told me aloud.

I looked away, unable to bear the heartbreak she was trying so hard to conceal, and met Alice's eyes as she suddenly began to smirk at me.

 _Damn_ it, I thought as I saw her vision.

The next morning, with the help of Alice's visions, I had no trouble making an excuse to get out of my second-period English class. I went out to the gym, which was the building nearest the parking lot, and waited for Isobel to arrive.

Within five minutes I heard the loud chugging of her truck's engine coming from about a mile away. It was a struggle to remain still as she poked along, but I forced myself to stay where I was. After a small eternity the decrepit vehicle appeared and turned into the parking lot. She didn't seem to see me waiting for her - but then, why would she? We had no prearrangement and I knew from my fairly frequent eavesdropping that her friends hadn't ever cut class to wait for her.

My impatience grew as she parked, opened the door of her truck and slid out - and then turned around again to grab or fix something on the seat. I gave up and started walking towards her. The cold rain immediately soaked into my hair.

Isobel had her own hood up to protect herself from the perpetual damp. She finished whatever she was doing and pulled her backpack out, keeping her head bent to shield her face as she began walking towards me. Consequently she didn't spot me until I was right in front of her. She stopped abruptly, following my legs up to my torso, and then continued up to my face with almost comical confusion. "What are _you_ doing out here?" she asked, as her eyes finally settled on my face.

"Waiting for you," I replied, wishing that a gentleman could still offer a lady his arm without it being more than a polite gesture. Perhaps it was just as well, though - even washed out by the rain, I could tell that the weekend had re-sensitized me to her scent. I had to force myself to breathe evenly through my nose and ignore the burning in my throat.

"Why?" she wondered. "You're getting wet."

I chuckled at her expression. "The rain doesn't bother me." But it did bother her. I began walking so that she would follow along, knowing that, were she thinking of it, she would prefer to be under some sort of shelter as soon as possible.

She kept pace with me without seeming to notice. My next words I had chosen with care - not a lie, but arranged in a way that gave entirely the wrong impression. "I heard your date on Friday didn't go well and I wanted to make sure you were alright." I had _heard_ her date not going well in real-time, as it happened, but I wasn't yet ready to admit my transgressions. And, though my worry over her was entirely unrelated to her date, I _had_ spent most of the weekend wondering if she was well.

"I'm fine," she replied automatically, as I had expected. I had known, even as I was fretting over them, that my fears were almost certainly groundless.

We paused under the overhang in front of the gym and she tilted her head up to look at me. I could have lost myself for hours - days - in her eyes. "There was one more thing," I told her.

She nodded as though she had expected as much - she probably had. It would have been strange if I had waited for her just to ascertain her safety with my own eyes. I would have _done_ it, of course - I was too obsessed not to - but it would have been strange.

"My mom heard all about your day with Alice, and she wanted to meet you. I thought that perhaps the three of us could get coffee after school." Suggesting the same course after the play had been inspired on Alice's part. I had imbibed the idea from her without even realizing it, and then seen it in her vision of the future even as I was telling Esme that such a meeting would be impossible.

Isobel's eyes widened slightly. "You want to introduce me to your _mother_?"

I realized suddenly how it sounded and grinned. "It's not like that. It may have escaped your notice, but we rarely make friends…"

She laughed, as I had intended.

"Esme cares very much about our happiness," I said more seriously, hearing the warmth in my own voice as I said her name. "She's so delighted that Alice and I enjoy your company that she can't help wanting to understand why first-hand." I looked intently into Isobel's eyes as I said it, willing her to understand.

Instead of comprehension, though, her expression went blank and her breathing sped up. I waited a few moments, holding her gaze, but she didn't reply. "Isobel?" I asked at last.

She blinked, tore her eyes from mine, and sucked in a ragged breath. " _Jeez_ ," she muttered. "You and your stupid magic."

"What magic?" I asked, not understanding.

Her glance was more rueful than angry, but she still looked somewhat displeased with me. "That _thing_ you just did with your voice." She gestured helplessly. "And then _looking_ at me like that on top of it…"

I replayed our encounter in my mind, but didn't see what she was talking about. "I don't - " I began.

She cut me off, waving it away. "No, it's probably innate - not magic _per se_. You should be more careful with it, though. Charm like that could be _deadly_."

Though her tone was only half serious, there was an undercurrent of mild reproof in it. "I'm sorry," I apologized, still not understanding. "But," I couldn't help adding, smiling, after a moment of thought, "I suppose if you find me charming, I'm not _that_ sorry."

She gave a snort of laughter and my shoulder a playful shove. I backed up a step both to avoid looking unnatural and because I was caught off guard by the casual physical contact. Not displeased, though. Never displeased. "So what about coffee?" I asked, confident that she would not refuse.

"Yeah, okay, but I want to be home in time to cook for Charlie." She rolled her eyes. "There aren't any microwaveable pizzas in the freezer and I don't want him to starve."

"I'm sure we'll be finished in plenty of time," I assured her.

"Okay, cool. I'll see you after class, then."

I wasn't ready for her to leave yet, but I could think of no plausible reason to stop her. We had made our plans and the conversation was, from her perspective, over. She had not spent the weekend desperately thinking about me, as I had about her. The lingering pain in my throat made a fitting counterpoint to the unexpected pain in my chest.

I went unwillingly to my next class and divided my attention between Jessica and Tyler - Jessica because I wanted to see more of Isobel, and Tyler because he was still wavering over the specifics of his plan. Alice couldn't see the future while he was still so indecisive, so I would have to use my abilities to form my own strategy for neutralizing him. Despite having no particulars to give me, Alice didn't foresee me having any trouble. Tyler was not terribly bright.

Alice stopped to talk with Isobel both before and after her trigonometry class, with the dual motives of liking her company and in order to reinforce the idea for everyone within the class that they were friends. That was an important element of my plan that I had nearly overlooked - not only did Alice and Isobel _actually_ need to be friends, everyone else needed to see that they were as well or else my word would carry less weight. I was glad that the necessity had not escaped Alice.

The locker room was where I judged Tyler the most likely to tell his story, but he decided against doing it before class started. That worked in our favor. Isobel appeared in the gym flanked by Alice on one side and Jessica, who watched in disbelief as Alice chattered, on the other. I joined them briefly, which nearly made Jessica's eyes come out of her head. Isobel replied to my joke about granola and yoga by informing me that she was doing aerobics, not yoga.

There was no more time to speak after that, but Tyler - and everyone else - had taken note of our friendly conversation. No one would doubt me when I said that Alice knew what had happened on her date.

It also served the purpose of solidifying Tyler's resolve to tell his story right after gym. It annoyed him to see Isobel smile at me. He didn't recognize that she was humoring my attempt at humor - didn't spot the patronizing edge to her expression or the roll of her eyes. I wished she _had_ smiled the smile he saw, but I would be grateful that he had misinterpreted it. Now he _wanted_ me to overhear what he had to say.

One of his friends gave him a perfect opening after class by asking about his date. A little smirk thinned his lips and his eyes darted around the room to see who was nearby. "Well," he told his friend, trying to sound lazy and uninterested in the question but instead mostly looking satisfied by it, "I definitely won't ask her out again."

His response piqued the interest of a number of nearby boys, several of whom had at least a passing preoccupation with Isobel themselves.

"Why not?" his friend asked, immediately wondering if _he_ could ask her out. I rolled my eyes.

"So I kissed her afterward, right? And then she just freaked out at me - " He had imagined an entire tirade for her in his head, plus clever responses for himself.

Thankfully my scornful laugh came out naturally as I saw what he was gearing up towards, saving us all from having to hear it. Everyone turned to look - even those who had not been listening to Tyler's bit of gossip. "Sorry," I said, not sorry at all, "but that's not what I heard happened at _all_."

"What would you know about it?" Tyler asked, resentful and suddenly apprehensive.

"She told my sister that you tried to grope her. On your first date." I kept my expression lightly amused, as though it didn't have anything in particular to do with me. "I don't think she would go out with you again if you begged."

I left while he was still sputtering, pleased that I had stopped the rumor but significantly less pleased by the suddenly emboldened thoughts of several of the other boys in the room.

What would I do if Isobel chose someone else? I honestly didn't know.

* * *

Note: This chapter is perhaps my least favorite of those I've written and I'm very glad it went up on time. It seems to me that it would have been a let-down after a week of waiting. I feel like it just wraps up or begins a bunch of minor points without anything truly important happening, and, because of that, I also feel that it jumps around a lot with no major narrative thrust to ground it. Unfortunately I'm not actually sure how to fix any of that. If anyone has any bright ideas, I'd love to hear them. Not holding my breath, though; fundamental structural problems are a bitch.


	19. Chapter 19

XIX.

I let out a breath as I walked away from Edward and hoped that I was walking in a straight line. I was still feeling more than a little dazed by the spell his voice had cast on me in that moment when he spoke affectionately of his mother. It was always pleasant and musical, his voice, but in that brief second it had become something else entirely - something rich and craveable. Like caramel, maybe, but not the cheap corn syrup-laden crap they sold at the grocery store. Instead it was a caramel lovingly crafted by hand, still sweet but also wonderfully complex. It had _pulled_ at me in ways I was unfamiliar with, inviting me to - for once in my life - simply agree to something without thinking it through exhaustively.

Obviously I didn't trust that impulse at _all_.

Still - trust was one thing, but fascination was another. I had always, always been _fascinated_ by the idea of simply jumping into things. It was what Renee did. Sometimes it worked out for her and sometimes it didn't, but she seemed to enjoy the ride either way. I didn't understand it, but a part of me wished that I did.

I felt a grimace pulling at my face. Maybe Alice was right. Maybe Edward was my best option.

Maybe I really wanted him to be.

I took out my phone. There was no way I was going to jump straight into Edward's arms or whatever, so if I was thinking this way I needed to start considering consequences. The one that loomed largest for me was whether my friends would start hating me if I dated him. Unfortunately it wasn't really a question I could ask Jessica directly. I thought she would probably give me a straight answer, but also that she would tell everyone who would listen that I had asked. As much as I valued her - and I absolutely did - she could not keep a secret to save her _life_.

I silently reviewed my other options. Lauren was immediately out, of course. There was June. I liked June. But the person I _really_ wanted to talk to was Angela. I just wasn't certain that her opinion on the subject would be indicative of what others would think. She was generous, for one thing, and for another I couldn't see her having any particular interest in Edward herself. My gut said that she had some other crush that she wasn't letting anyone in on. She never really joined in our discussions about which guys were cute and often looked a little sad or abstracted while we were having them.

Still...she might not be a bad place to, at the very least, start. Maybe she could tell me if June was likely to spread anything I told her. I had only been at school for a little more than two weeks, after all, so while it was already obvious to me that Jessica liked to gossip, I didn't feel confident enough in my observations to make that kind of judgment about everyone.

I decided to text Angela and ask if she wanted to study during lunch. That was a sufficiently innocuous and convincing cover for the kind of conversation I wanted to have.

In trig I ended up telling Jessica about my day with Alice by way of explaining the several-minute conversation we had before the bell for the beginning of class rang. I had expected a deluge of questions about it, but she looked too stunned to be properly curious. I expected that wouldn't last forever, but Angela texted me between our next two classes to agree to our lunch date, so Jessica would just have to hold on to whatever she thought of until I had time to talk after dinner.

I suffered through gym and afterward took my lunch to the library to meet Angela. She arrived a few minutes later with a sandwich and a bottle of juice from the cafeteria. "I brought you here under false pretenses," I admitted to her in a low voice as we spread out our books. I didn't stop her from getting her notes out, though, and fished around in my backpack for my own. I wanted that layer of verisimilitude and, anyway, we might end up getting a _little_ studying in.

"Oh yeah?" she asked, amused. "What did you need a pretense of studying for?"

"A conversation," I replied. "I need to talk to someone about something that I'm not entirely certain of yet, and you're the person I trust the most not to tell the rest of the school." Well, the person I trusted the most besides, probably, any of the Cullens, but _they_ could hardly help me.

"Now I'm intrigued," she said.

"It's probably not that interesting," I told her, and then considered the way people talked about the Cullens. "But maybe it is. I guess I don't really know."

I hesitated, trying to decide, before realizing that Angela was waiting expectantly for me to continue. "So...I guess the thing is...Edward maybe kind of likes me."

She blinked. "Edward...Cullen?"

I fixed her with a look. "No, the _other_ Edward who attends school here."

She giggled at my exasperated tone. "Sorry, sorry. It's just...he doesn't date." I refrained from speaking as she paused thoughtfully. "Although I suppose he does pay more attention to you than he ever has to anyone else. And he saved you when Tyler's car almost hit you."

"And yesterday when I hung out with Alice, she would _not_ stop trying to find out whether I liked him. And today he asked me to have coffee with him and his mom. So...yeah."

"Huh," she said, digesting that bit of information. "That does sound pretty conclusive if his family is involved and everything. So _do_ you like him? Jessica told me that your date with Tyler didn't go too well."

"I'll tell you about that later," I promised, waving it away. "I don't know if I like Edward. I…think I might, but it's a little scary."

She nodded. "I know what you mean. He's very...intimidating."

I looked at her in surprise. "No, that's not what I mean. I don't find anything about him intimidating except how...distractingly pretty he is. And how much I want to listen to him when he's talking. And how much I like talking _to_ him."

She bit her lip to smother a laugh. "So basically how much you like him," she said.

"Um," I said. "Yes, I suppose. If you put it that way."

"Okay, so what's the problem? Other than your apparent fear of commitment?"

Was I afraid of commitment? I would have to think that one over. "Well...I know other girls have pursued him and...I didn't like upsetting Lauren when I went out with Tyler. I just want to know if you think that the same kind of thing will happen if I go out with Edward."

"Hmm," she said, her eyes falling to the book in front of her on the table. She stared at it blankly for a long moment. "Lauren and Jessica are the only two from our group who asked him out," she told me. "Lauren already, um…"

"Hates my guts," I supplied for her.

"Well...maybe. Almost. Anyway, I doubt you could upset her much more."

"And Jessica?"

"That's the problem," Angela agreed with a nod. "But I think if you talked to her first and asked if she would mind - I don't think she would say that she would. For one thing, if you're unattached, Mike is probably going to ask you out…"

"Not that I would _go_ out with him. I already know Jessica really likes him."

"Yeah, but Jessica knows he would ask you out, too. So that will make her more interested in seeing you date someone else, even if it is Edward. Plus she likes it when people...go out of their way to consider her feelings."

"Doesn't everyone?" I asked.

"Well, yeah, but...I think maybe Jessica likes feeling like she's the most important to people, even when she isn't and shouldn't be."

I was surprised - it was the harshest thing I had ever heard Angela say.

She saw my surprised glance and smiled hurriedly. "I'm not trying to say that she doesn't have a lot of good points, too - I just think that might be her biggest flaw."

"Bigger than not being able to keep a secret?" I asked.

"I'm pretty sure the two things are related," Angela replied with a frown. She sighed. "Knowing things and being able to tell them makes her feel more important." A sudden smile warmed her face and she went on, "Well, there's another benefit to you - let her be the one to spread the rumor. I won't tell her that I already know. That will make her feel even better about it."

"You," I levelled my finger at Angela's nose, "are almost as clever as you are observant."

She blushed and shook her head. "I've lived here my whole life, so I haven't exactly lacked opportunities to observe."

"I'll bet Jessica couldn't analyze you half as well," I replied.

"Jessica's talents are not geared towards that kind of analysis," Angela allowed. She sighed again, but this time it was happy. "I'll admit: I'm glad you moved here. I feel like I can really talk to you. Is that weird?"

"Well, if it is, I think we're in the same boat."

"You never talk about your friends back in Phoenix," she said.

That was because neither had even responded to my last email. "I didn't have many friends and we weren't that close. They've already forgotten me, I think."

"Really? Hmm, that's kind of unsettling."

"How so?" I wondered.

She gave a little laugh. "I always thought that it was just hard to find people I wanted as life-long friends because I lived in a small town."

That made _me_ laugh. "No, I think that might just be high school."

"I guess maybe it is." She shrugged. "Well, if that's worked out, would you mind if we actually studied? I am not ready for that test coming up in Spanish at _all_."

"Yeah, me neither. I actually made flashcards over the weekend…"

"Perfect. Give them here and you can go first."

We spent the rest of the period quizzing each other on verb conjugation and gendered nouns. It was less interesting than talking about Edward, but probably a lot more necessary.

The subject of our lunchtime conversation surprised me in Spanish by taking the seat that Tyler had been using recently rather than sitting with his brother. I didn't object - I doubted that Tyler would want it. _See?!_ I asked Angela with my eyes. Hers were wide with interest and surprise, so I thought she probably did see.

"Hello again, Isobel."

"Hey Edward," I replied, trying to make my tone as casual as his was.

"How are you today, Angela?" he went on, scrupulously acknowledging both of us.

She actually _blushed_. "Fine." It was more a movement of her lips than anything audible, but either her response or the necessities of politeness encouraged him to go on.

"I hope your winter break went well."

This time she simply nodded, not even trying to speak.

I caught her eye and shook my head at her, amused and not understanding her reticence at all. "So," I said to Edward, rescuing Angela from his attention, "where is it we're going this afternoon?"

He smiled at me a little sheepishly. "Actually, I'll need to ride with you since my siblings still need to get home, so I can give you directions as we go. It's the only real coffee shop in town, though."

I hadn't spent enough time in Forks to _know_ there was a real coffee shop in town. Charlie made coffee at home, and the rare times we went out, it was to his favorite diner. Other than that, I knew there was a place that delivered pizza somewhere nearby, but I had only ever heard him call, never gone to the location myself.

I really hadn't spent much time in Forks.

"No sense in taking two cars anyway," I told him with a shrug.

Angela was staring at us, making no secret of her interest. I decided we should probably try to include her in the conversation. "Are you ready for the test on Wednesday?" I asked Edward.

"Er, yes," he said, shifting uncomfortably for some reason that I couldn't name. "Um. Actually, I'm fluent in Spanish."

That caught my interest. "Oh yeah? So if we wanted to, say, speak it with someone…"

His eyes rested on Angela for a brief moment, and I realized that I had no evidence that she could converse with him in _English_ , let alone Spanish. "Of course," Edward replied smoothly, regaining his composure.

"We spent lunch studying," I told him with a glance at Angela, trying to get her engaged. That was the reason I had brought up homework in the first place. It was like talking about weather, but more targeted at the student demographic.

Something about my saying so seemed to discomfit him again. "Ah. I - hmm - I noticed you were missing."

More evidence that he liked me, but it didn't leave me with anything obvious to say in return and Angela seemed to be resisting my pressure to contribute anything. I sighed. This conversation was officially dead in the water. I was in the middle of trying to come up with a new approach when the bell rang, so I rather gratefully let it go. Edward had never been so awkward in conversation before. Maybe it had something to do with Angela's silent observation. Even I had to admit that I found it a little unnerving. Forks in general was so _weird_ about the Cullens.

With a test coming up, I was dutiful in my note-taking and didn't so much as glance at Edward for the rest of the period - easy enough since he was sitting behind me. When the bell for the end of school rang, I paused long enough to give Angela a _look_. I was definitely going to call her at some point and try to figure out why she couldn't seem to say two words to Edward. It was no wonder he didn't like any of my friends if they all treated him like this.

For now, though, it was time to head to the cafe. I waved goodbye to Angela - no use telling her goodbye when she wasn't talking - and headed toward the exit with Edward following close behind. We passed Tyler on our way to the door and he shot me a glare which Edward intercepted - and presumably sent back to him since he went a little pale and quickly dropped his eyes. "Stop that," I muttered at Edward. I hadn't actually seen his face, but I had a good idea of how scary he could be, having gotten a dose of it my very first day. Tyler and I weren't exactly on good terms, sure, but that was between us. I didn't need Edward playing the overprotective...whatever.

"He tried to start a rumor about you today after gym," Edward returned in the same low tone. "Alice told me some of what happened Friday so I think I managed to stop it, but - "

"Thank you for that," I cut him off as we made it out the door. "It's nice to have friends to watch my back. But as long as things are being done to my _face_ , I can handle them myself."

He looked ready to protest, but then shook his head and gave me a slightly pained smile. "You don't like having your battles fought for you."

I scrunched up my nose at the sky in irritation as the drizzle picked up a bit to become something like actual rain. Of course it couldn't have waited until we got to the car. "I'll never learn to fight them myself if someone else is always trying to do it for me," I responded, pulling up my hood.

He chuckled. "Is that something you still _need_ to learn?"

That was...possibly a good question. I didn't have time to answer it, though, because someone touched my arm. "Isobel," a voice said. Mike's voice, I realized as I turned.

"Hey," I said, surprised, and then immediately became wary, remembering what Alice had told me about Mike and the Valentine's Day dance. I had come up with a good reason not to go just in case _anyone_ asked - I could hardly walk, let alone _dance_ \- but needing to use my excuse with Mike would still be a little awkward.

"Can I talk to you for a minute?" His eyes flickered to Edward. "Alone," he added.

Well...crap.

Oh well, we might as well have it out. "Give me a second," I told Edward and then took a few steps out onto the grass between the paths - far enough to be reasonably private under normal circumstances. Of course, Edward had super-hearing, but Mike didn't know that and I didn't care if we had privacy or not. Actually it might be useful for Edward to hear what I was about to say. As much as I liked him - and it was certainly more than I did Mike - I wasn't going to make an idiot of myself tripping over my own feet with _him_ , either.

"So," Mike began, not quite meeting my eyes, "the Valentine's Day dance is in about three weeks and, uh, I wanted to know if you'd like to - I mean, uh, if you'd...like to ask me?"

"I won't be at the dance. I'm going to be in Seattle that day," I told him. "My mom is shipping a bunch of my books and I need a new shelf before they get here." That much was true - my mom spent about a week out of every month at our house in Arizona to keep an eye on things and attend any training necessary with her mostly work-from-home-or-wherever job. Her time there happened to coincide fairly well with the dance. In point of fact, my books would probably sit around for a few days before they had a shelf to occupy, but close enough.

"Oh," Mike said.

I took a deep breath. "Besides, um...I was under the impression that Jessica might ask you."

He shifted uncomfortably, looking a little guilty. "She already did."

My mouth fell open and I stared at him with a disbelief that swiftly morphed into anger. "What the _hell_ , Mike?" I demanded. "Why would I ask you to a dance my _friend_ had _already_ asked you to?"

"You went out with Tyler, and everyone knows Lauren likes him!" he replied, holding his hands up defensively.

For a moment I seriously considered asking Edward for help giving Mike the kind of glare he deserved. " _First_ ," I informed him through clenched teeth, " _I_ didn't know Lauren liked him when he asked. _Second_ , she _hadn't_ asked him out." Third, I added silently, I actually liked Jessica, while Lauren was a huge bitch. "The situations bear no more than a passing resemblance and I can't _believe_ you thought I would do that to Jessica."

"Sorry," Mike mumbled.

"You should be!" I couldn't think of anything else to say to communicate my displeasure, so I turned and stomped away. The effect was somewhat ruined when I tripped over the raised edge of the path, but luckily I was close enough to Edward by that point for him to reach out reflexively and catch my shoulder, keeping me from falling on my face. I looked up at him, trying to decide whether he had actually heard all of that. Judging by the dark look he had fixed on Mike, he had. I was too angry, this time, to ask him to stop glowering. "Let's go," I said to him instead.

He dragged his eyes away to meet mine and nodded.

I practiced breathing deeply the rest of the way to my truck. We got in, but I wasn't quite ready to drive yet. Driving while emotional could be dangerous - that much I had learned very thoroughly by spending seventeen years riding with Renee.

"You alright?" Edward asked.

"Yeah," I replied, resting my elbows on the steering wheel so I could bury my hands in my hair. "Just - really, really irritated." Every time I remembered the guilty expression on Mike's face it brought a fresh wave of fury with it. It would be best, I decided, if I could come up with something distracting. Edward was right there, and a conversation partner was usually better for distraction than trying to come up with something alone. I cast around for a topic for a moment, and then remembered Alice advising me to ask him about music. "Would you tell me about something?"

"What would you like to know?" he asked carefully.

I took a deep breath. "What kind of music do you like?"

"Music?" he repeated, looking startled.

His expression made me laugh, and realizing what a non sequitur it was made me laugh harder. "Sorry," I managed, "Alice told me to ask and I thought that a neutral topic might help me calm down."

"Ah." A smile hovered at the corners of his lips. "We can talk about music, but once I get started you might have trouble making me stop."

"Mm, I guess an in-depth discussion might make us a little bit late to see your mom."

He grinned. "I suppose that depends on how you're defining 'a little bit.' You might also be _a little bit_ late making dinner for your father."

His smile, radiant enough to make my stomach flutter, called up an answering expression from me. "Would I have even _a little bit_ of time left for homework?"

"Not likely," he replied.

"Well, I suppose we should postpone that conversation, then."

"Probably," he agreed. "Anyway, unless I am very much mistaken, I believe you've already found a way to regain your equilibrium."

He had a point. I sighed and started up my truck. "I suppose you heard all of that?"

For the barest moment I wasn't certain he would admit to it, but then he nodded, another smile pulling at one side of his mouth.

"What?" I demanded, sparing him a glance as I backed out.

"I understand why it made you angry, but, in retrospect, it's sort of funny. Not Mike acting like the fool he is," he hastened to add, rolling his eyes. "But your reaction - and his expression."

I thought about it and found myself chuckling a little evilly. "He wasn't expecting it, that's for sure."

"No, he was quite surprised. I don't think he knows you very well."

I raised my eyebrow at him. "Implying that you do?"

"Well," he replied, lowering his eyes modestly, "I certainly wasn't surprised that you blew up at him."

I wasn't certain how much foresight _that_ took. "Which way do I go?" I asked as I got out to the main road.

"The cafe is downtown."

Or what passed for a downtown in Forks, anyway. "We probably could have walked," I told him as I turned.

It was his turn to give me an incredulous look. "In the rain?" he asked. "I mean, it doesn't bother me, but you - "

Well, maybe he knew me a _little_. "Good point," I allowed. We passed a few moments in silence. "So what's your mom like?" I asked before the pause could get uncomfortable and to forestall any other comments he might have about Mike. I was more than ready to be done with that subject.

"Turn up at that next street," he told me, and then paused to give my question some consideration. He shrugged as I turned at the place he had indicated - a neighborhood street that intersected Highway 101, which served as the main road through downtown Forks. "You'll see," he answered with a cryptic smile. "The cafe is just around that corner up there. Might want to park somewhere along here."

"Oh, okay," I agreed.

I wished he would tell me _something_ about her. If she was anything like the rest of his family, I might wind up sounding a bit like Angela trying to talk with him. I thought that Rosalie could probably make me tongue-tied if she exerted herself, even though I could talk to Edward and Alice without too much trouble.

Oh well, I had agreed to do this as a favor. If Edward wanted it to go well, I trusted that he would work to facilitate the conversation.

On the other hand, I would have had more confidence in his ability to do that if I _hadn't_ just witnessed him fail utterly at it with Angela. I would just have to hope that Mrs. Cullen was more like Alice than Rosalie.


	20. Chapter 20

Note: This chapter is my longest yet and I'm behind on writing (ugh, 6-week summer cram courses), so I'm not going to update Saturday. I need to get further ahead. Sorry about that. The next two chapters are a more reasonable length, which means this won't happen again for a while, at least.

* * *

XX.

I needed to buy an umbrella, I thought, noting Isobel's hunched shoulders as she walked beside me. Why she didn't have one when she clearly disliked the rain so much was a mystery. Perhaps she simply forgot it more regularly than she remembered. Or perhaps it hadn't occurred to her - most people in Forks were so resigned to the rain that they hardly seemed to notice it. A few regularly wore hoods. Fewer used umbrellas.

"Are you cold?" I asked her, wishing that I had some body heat to offer.

"Not too bad," she replied without looking at me - which would, after all, have required looking _up_. "Just my face and my hands a bit. And my legs now that my jeans are getting damp. My coat is pretty good, though."

I added a blanket to my mental list. Humans might carry blankets in their cars for picnics or various outings. It wouldn't be so strange if I had one, and then I would be prepared for situations like this. Except, of course, that I didn't _have_ my car with me. Perhaps it would be worthwhile to stash one in each of the cars.

We reached the cafe while I was still debating, and I opened the door for her. "Thanks," she told me, hurrying inside.

At least the interior was warm, and Esme had already arrived and secured a corner with plush armchairs for us. I waved at her and she waved back, and then smiled at Isobel. I saw Isobel's eyes widen at that smile, and then she smiled back tentatively. She might even have been blushing. "What would you like?" I asked her.

"Huh?" she replied, blinking, as her gaze settled on me.

It seemed Esme's usual charm was as effective on Isobel as it was on anyone else. Most of us were vaguely predatory no matter what we did - we made humans distinctly uncomfortable - but Esme was another story. Compassion seemed to radiate from her, blunting those characteristics that usually warned humans that they were prey. When they looked at her, they often saw only her dazzling beauty. "What would you like to drink?" I repeated, amused to see that Isobel was not immune to vampiric charms. At least not entirely. "My treat," I added, remembering her date with Tyler.

"Are you sure?" she asked.

"Yes," I told her firmly, amused all over again. It had been almost a century since I'd had to think about how much I spent, and she was worried that buying _coffee_ might put me out. Had she even noticed the car that Alice had driven to Port Angeles?

"Um, well, I'll just have some tea. What kinds do you have?" she asked the barista. He retrieved a list for her to look at while I ordered a black coffee. She settled on a flavor and studied the pastry display as he filled our cups. I couldn't tell whether she was avoiding my gaze or was truly interested in what she was looking at. Perhaps she was hungry.

"Those lemon-ginger cookies are good with the apple spice tea," the barista told her as he returned, noticing the direction of her gaze.

She jumped a little, making me wonder what she had been thinking of. "Oh - they look good, but, uh, maybe another day."

"If you want to try them just say so," I told her.

She shook her head, her face settling into an expression I was becoming very familiar with. I wasn't certain quite what words to put to it. _Stubborn dignity_ might have come close. "I'll be home soon, so there's no need to eat now - "

"We'll take two," I told the barista before returning my attention to Isobel. "If you don't want to eat before dinner, you can take them home and have them after."

She rolled her eyes and elbowed me in the ribs for my presumption, but she was smiling. "I won't have the tea if I take them home, so what's even the point?"

I traded the barista my debit card for our drinks and the cookies, and fished out a couple dollars for a tip. "The point," I informed her, "is that if you like them, we can come back another time and you can see if you like them even more _with_ the tea."

That made her laugh. She took the bag away from me and grabbed her cup as we moved away from the counter. "Well, I guess I had better save them, then, so we have an excuse to come back."

For a moment I lost the ability to speak. I recognized that playfully competitive look. She was _flirting_ with me. It felt like flying, or like the first time I had gone running after the start of my new existence: exhilarating. "Isobel," I said so that she would look at me. "We don't need an _excuse_."

It seemed I had managed to render her speechless - perhaps the first time I had won one of our verbal exchanges. She blushed prettily, reminding me distantly of my burning throat, but my thirst had never mattered less than it did in that instant. I wanted to savor the moment, but Esme was waiting - and hanging gleefully on every word we spoke.

She stood as we approached her corner and held her hand out to Isobel. She was, I saw, wearing a pair of cloth driving gloves. Clever, if coming a little late to avoid exposure. Still, I was glad - I knew Isobel didn't like the cold, so how could she enjoy the touch of our cold flesh? It was a depressing thought. Even if I managed to control myself sufficiently to make touching her safe, there was no reason to think she would welcome my cold caresses.

Of course...there was no particular reason to think she would welcome _my_ caresses, cold or not. I was getting ahead of myself.

Isobel took Esme's proffered hand. "It's nice to meet you, Mrs. Cullen," she said.

"Esme, please," my mother told her, her voice filling our corner of the cafe like sunlight. "All the children call me by my name most of the time, so you may as well, too."

Isobel ducked her head, looking embarrassed. "Esme," she repeated. "Okay."

We took our seats. "I'm so pleased to meet you," Esme told her. "Alice and Edward have hardly stopped talking about you since you arrived."

"Mostly since the accident," I protested, subtly reminding Esme to be careful. Isobel knew there was something strange about us, but she didn't have any of the specifics. The last thing we needed to start with was the fact that she smelled good enough to nearly drive me out of my mind. Whether I didn't want to start with that because it might frighten her enough to expose us, or whether I was afraid she would never speak to me again, I couldn't say.

Isobel gave me a quick, searching look before returning her eyes to Esme. "Yeah. That day was...interesting."

"I hope the rest of your time in Forks has been better," Esme replied, pretending to take a sip of whatever she had ordered. It reminded me that I, too, held a cup and should probably begin pretending to drink from it.

"On the whole, yes, much better - but, then, most things are better than having my life placed at risk," Isobel said.

Esme laughed. "That I can believe. Is it a culture shock, moving so far away and to such a small town?"

She considered the question for a moment before answering. "Maybe. I hadn't really thought of that. I don't know, though - there are lots of things I don't like about Forks," she glanced reflexively out the front windows, giving the rain a dirty look, "but I seem to be getting along with people better here." She chuckled. "I'm a lot like Charlie - my dad. Maybe he just fits in better in a small town, and maybe I'm enough like him that I do, too."

"I'm surprised," Esme replied. "I was under the impression that you were mostly raised by your mother. I suppose I assumed that nurture would take precedence over nature."

"You'd think," Isobel agreed, "but no - my mom and I share a lot of interests, but not many personality traits."

"What's she like?"

Isobel paused thoughtfully. "We're the same height, but she seems shorter because she's very delicate and graceful." She smiled wistfully. "She's always excitable and animated - I tease her that she talks with her hands instead of her mouth. She hasn't yet found an object or situation that isn't worth _some_ kind of exclamation. When she was younger, she was really bad with money because she's _so_ impulsive. Luckily she's gotten better. She doesn't like confrontation much. I think leaving my dad was the last time she decided that there really was _no_ mutually acceptable compromise to be made. Because discipline requires confrontation, I guess she's more like my friend than my parent in a lot of ways."

That explained why Isobel was so good at confrontation, I supposed. She was probably used to handling it when her mother couldn't or wouldn't.

"I understand that feeling," Esme told her. "All my children were older and very much who they were going to be by the time I met them. It creates a different kind of relationship."

"I guess I had to grow up pretty fast because of the way Renee is," Isobel agreed. "I think maybe I would have anyway, though." She smiled with tolerant affection. "Probably lucky for her. And lucky for her that I'm more like Charlie. She needs someone sensible and stolid around to keep her grounded - she just shouldn't be _married_ to that person."

"It sounds like it wasn't easy for you to leave," Esme said. "Is it too personal if I ask about it?"

"Oh, no," Isobel replied quickly. "It's not particularly personal. It's just, she got remarried, and Phil - her husband - moves a lot for his job. We couldn't go, not with me still in high school." She grinned suddenly. "She suggested that I home-school my last two years, but I shot that down fast. My mom and a meticulously considered and kept schedule do _not_ go together. But," her smile became sad, "the fact that she even suggested it told me just how much she wanted to be with Phil, so I told her I probably owed Charlie a year or two of what remained of my childhood before I went off to college."

She paused to take a breath, looking guilty. "It's probably true, even though it wasn't the reason I decided to move. Renee chose to believe me, though. Not," she added quickly, "that I have anything against living with Charlie. I just couldn't ever face the thought of being so far away from my mom. I guess I can now that I'm getting older, even though I miss her."

"Of course you do," Esme told her soothingly. "What a very generous young lady you are, though. I don't think one in a thousand children of your age would put so much thought into the emotional well-being of their parents. Your mother must be very proud to have raised you."

Isobel blushed furiously and dropped her eyes. I knew precisely how she felt - Esme often gave me praise that I wasn't certain I deserved. "Well, I hope so," she murmured, and then glanced at me - looking for a way to change the subject, no doubt. "You're being awfully quiet," she told me.

"Esme is doing a good job of asking things I would like to know about you," I replied.

Esme laughed in response. "I'm sorry," she said to Isobel. "This isn't supposed to be an interrogation."

"Well, that's good, because if it were you'd be doing a terrible job of making it feel like one," Isobel reassured Esme with her impish smile. "Can I ask you something, though?"

Only I had senses keen enough to spot Esme's slight hesitation and the glance she threw my way. I gave her an encouraging nod. Of all the ways I was afraid of Isobel finding out about us, it wasn't her questions that scared me. On the whole, she had shown remarkable - and sometimes inconvenient - restraint about not pursuing the mystery we presented. "Of course you can," Esme told her smoothly, giving no outward indication of our exchange, though her thoughts were still a bit troubled.

"Charlie says that Dr. Cullen is a great doctor - that Forks is lucky to have him - but no one has ever told me what you do," Isobel said.

Esme smiled, relieved. "Carlisle practices because he loves it, not because we need the income."

Isobel's eyes flickered over Esme's clothes and then over mine, too. "I'd figured out that much," she told us.

"Well, that's the reason you've never heard about what I do," Esme explained. "I don't have a job as such, simply...some hobbies I'm very serious about."

"Like what?" Isobel asked.

"Architecture is probably the one I'm _most_ serious about," Esme said thoughtfully, "but I really only get the chance to practice when we move into a new house."

"Why not do it professionally?" Isobel wondered.

The question took me slightly by surprise. It had never occurred to me that Esme _could_ , although I supposed that if Carlisle could work as a doctor, there was nothing stopping her from having a career of her own. It wasn't normal for our kind, but what about us _was_ normal?

"Hm," Esme said thoughtfully, "I suppose the first answer to that question is that we don't tend to live places where architectural design is much in demand. Carlisle likes these small towns, like Forks, that really _need_ his expertise. I could never ask him to move somewhere larger just because I want to design buildings. His work happens to be more vital than mine."

"That makes sense," Isobel allowed. "How long has he been practicing, though? You make it sound - " She cut herself off. "Never mind, that's a silly question." She laughed a little nervously, and I knew that _she_ knew it wasn't a silly question at all. Rather, she was trying to let us have our privacy. "You said that was the first reason. What other reasons are there?" she continued quickly, as though worried that Esme would pursue her previous question.

Esme and I exchanged another of those glances that were too quick for human senses to pick up. _Perceptive girl,_ she thought, half at me and half to herself. _I'll have to watch the implications of what I say more carefully._ I had no way to tell her that it probably didn't matter - Isobel had more than enough evidence of how strange we were simply from interacting with me. More was of little consequence - had she wanted to pursue it, she likely would already have done so.

"Well," Esme said slowly, as though thinking over Isobel's question, "as sad as it is to say in this day and age, women are still not well represented within architecture. I haven't the patience to work my way up in an established firm with all the subtle forms of discrimination it would likely entail, and starting my own firm would involve too many nitpicky details that I have no interest in dealing with." She smiled. "They say, you know, that it's not how passionate you are about something that should determine whether you pursue it as a career - it's how well you can handle the parts of doing it that you hate."

"I've never heard that," Isobel said, "but it makes a lot of sense."

"What about you?" Esme asked. "You'll be graduating soon. Do you know yet what you want to study?"

Isobel hesitated. "Truthfully? No, not at all." She gave us both a bright smile that I was fairly certain was entirely false. "It doesn't make any sense at all. I'm good at plenty of things - I read really fast, I write well, science isn't confusing for the most part, and I can do math. I don't ever _want_ to, but I _can_."

"Being good at something isn't the same as liking it," Esme protested.

"I know." Isobel's smile dimmed a little and her fingers began playing nervously with a strand of hair that fell over her shoulder. "I don't - know what I like. I've been really focused on school for a long time - on all the things I have to do. Now that it's getting close to time to pick what I _want_ to do - I don't think I know what that is."

"You're still young," Esme tried to reassure her, her eyes resting on Isobel's busy fingers as though she, too, wished she could reach out and soothe them to motionlessness. "I'm sorry. I thought I was just asking the kind of question that adults always ask children your age."

"I know," Isobel said again, more quietly. "I've never actually admitted that to anyone - not even my mom. Especially not my mom. She thinks I always know exactly what I'm doing."

"No one _always_ knows what they're doing," I broke in, my voice unexpectedly harsh. It was hard to say whether I felt more defensive knowing that I had no idea what I was doing myself lately, or if my defensiveness was for Isobel having unreasonable expectations placed on her. Even if she was the one doing doing the placing.

Isobel looked at me, surprised. "I suppose they don't. You can't blame Renee for thinking it about me, though." Her lips quirked up into a slightly ironic expression more characteristic of her. "I've worked pretty hard to project an image of omniscience for her so that she won't worry about me. When she worries, she panics, and when she panics she completely stops thinking and ends up doing crazy things."

Esme laughed, looking conflicted, like she wasn't certain that it was something she was supposed to laugh at. I shook my head at Isobel, wanting to give her one of the casual physical reprimands she used on me so often. A tap on the forehead with my knuckles, maybe. Gently, of course. Really, though, I was starting to wonder who was whose parent in Isobel's relationship with her mother.

"Tell me something you do know you like," Esme said, her voice as sweet as honey.

Isobel once again blushed. "Uh, well, I really like the truck Charlie got for me."

"Why is that?" Esme asked, trying to draw her out and make up for asking about something uncomfortable.

Her brow furrowed. "I'm not quite certain. She's big and old and slow. I shouldn't like that, but it makes me feel like...she's generous and steady, the kind of person who isn't going to revolutionize anything, but who makes a friend anyone could rely on."

"She?" Esme asked, noticing the same thing I had in the ambulance.

Isobel's cheeks flamed again. "Oh. I've been trying to name her ever since the accident. I don't know if Edward mentioned it, but he pulled me under her to keep me away from Tyler's car, so I sort of feel like I owe her my life a little."

Esme bit her lip, uncertain whether laughter would hurt Isobel's feelings this time, even though she meant it kindly. _She would fit right into the family, Edward,_ she thought at me wistfully. _I see why Alice likes her so much - they're both so delightfully whimsical._

I kept myself from frowning at her only with a conscious effort.

"What have you come up with so far?" Esme managed, swallowing her smile.

"Nothing," Isobel replied, her voice forlorn. The naming of her truck suddenly seemed much more significant to me - I didn't want her to sound that way.

"Nothing at all?" Esme asked, surprised. "Not even any general guidelines?"

"Oh, well, I was thinking something classic but not too common. I think my truck is from the fifties - or maybe the early sixties?"

"Fifties," I put in, amused that she didn't even know the model year. "Fifty-eight, I think, or maybe fifty-nine."

She looked at me with wide eyes. "How do you know?"

I rolled my eyes at her. "Because I know cars. What do you think?"

Her gaze weighed me thoughtfully. "I didn't know that about you. I think it might be surprising."

Said the girl who seemed completely incapable of reacting normally to _anything_. I turned my face away to hide my smile. "Why surprising?" I asked her.

"I guess because you're so pretty," she replied after a moment of thought.

The flat statement - as though she were remarking on something utterly obvious - pulled a laugh from me. She even managed to say it without blushing. "What does...prettiness...have to do with anything?" I asked her, wondering about her word choice. Why _pretty_?

"Well, it's just not what you'd expect, right? You don't see the pretty guys in teen movies changing oil or taking apart engines or whatever. When you look inhumanly beautiful, it's natural to assume that you don't do mundane things - especially _dirty_ mundane things."

It was difficult not to wince at the word "inhuman," even though she used it without any suggestive emphasis. Fortunately or unfortunately, it robbed the rest of her statement of some of its humor. "Isobel," I said, still managing to be _mildly_ amused, "knowing about cars _generally_ \- as in makes and models - and knowing about engines, how they function and how to repair them, are fairly different areas of expertise. It's perfectly possible to be knowledgeable in both - as I am - but just because I know the approximate model of your truck doesn't necessarily imply that I spend my weekends elbow-deep in engine guts. Actually," I smirked at her, "that's more Rosalie's sort of thing."

She shrugged at the rebuke, apparently uninterested in the distinction I was drawing. "Rosalie isn't _that_ much prettier than you are, so it's much less surprising to learn that now that I know you like cars. Anyway," she returned her attention to Esme, who had been following our byplay with amusement, "I was going to look for a good literary name, but I don't have most of my books here, so it's a little difficult."

"Do you like philosophy?" Esme asked.

"Kind of. A little. I haven't read much."

"Do you know Simone de Beauvoir?"

Isobel shook her head slowly. "It sounds familiar, maybe, but no."

"Well, that's where my mind went immediately when you put _classic_ together with _literary_. De Beauvoir wrote _The Second Sex_ , which is often credited with igniting second-wave feminism." Esme smiled fondly. "I learned French in order to read it in the original language."

"You did?" Isobel asked, sounding impressed.

"Well," her smile became a little bit rueful, "Carlisle is something of a Renaissance man. In marrying him, reading at least some of the philosophers he enjoys or finds interesting became inevitable. There was a good deal happening in France when Simone de Beauvoir wrote, and - and when Carlisle became interested in it, he wanted to read everything. So we learned French together and worked our way through all the great French existentialists of the period, taking turns reading to each other."

I understood her hesitation in the middle of her explanation - she and Carlisle had _lived_ through that period of French philosophy and had studied it as it was happening.

"Wow, that sounds amazing," Isobel told her.

Esme shot me a triumphant smile, pleased to have discovered an aspect of her relationship with Carlisle that Isobel found compelling. She expected that I would find a way to make use of the knowledge.

"So you're suggesting Simone as a name for my truck?" Isobel continued, not noticing the look Esme gave me.

"I don't know about _suggesting_ ," Esme replied, returning her gaze to Isobel, "but I am sharing my thoughts on the matter."

"I think I might like it," Isobel told her slowly. "Simone. There's something strong about it. It reminds me a little of Nina Simone, too."

"You like Nina Simone?" I asked, surprised that she even knew who the singer was. Perhaps I shouldn't have been, but I didn't think there were many human seventeen-year-olds who knew about classic jazz.

"How could anyone _not_?" she replied.

"It's a good association," Esme said, sounding satisfied.

"That's that, then," Isobel said. "Simone. I wonder how you christen a car."

"Champagne seems safe," Esme told her with a laugh.

"I'm too young to buy it myself, and I doubt Charlie will buy it for me just so I can pour it or smash the bottle over my truck," Isobel pointed out. "Besides, I'd have to wash her right afterward."

"Not if you leave her in the rain," I offered. "And you could substitute sparkling cider."

"Or sparkling water?" Esme said with a laugh.

"That might have some promise," Isobel agreed.

"Have you finished your tea?" I asked Isobel.

She looked at her cup in surprise. "Oh. Yes. I forgot to eat the cookies."

"Too busy answering my questions to eat them, you mean," Esme corrected, giving her an apologetic smile.

"I know you didn't want to get home too late," I said.

She pulled out her phone and checked it. "Yeah, I guess I should be going. Charlie will be home in an hour and a half - or he's supposed to be, anyway." She sounded reluctant, which was pleasantly flattering. "Thank you for this. I had a lot of fun."

"Thank _you_ ," Esme replied, holding out her gloved hand again. "I'm so pleased to have the chance to get to know you. Sometime…" She stopped herself just short of inviting Isobel to come over after school one day. I gave her a sharp look. There was no point in wishing. It was far too great a risk. "Sometime we'll have to do something like this again."

"Sure, I'd love that," Isobel replied.

"I'll walk you back to your truck," I told her.

She rolled her eyes at me. "I doubt anyone is going to snatch me off the street given that it's Forks and my father is the police chief," she replied. "It isn't even completely dark yet."

I knew that, but I wanted a few more moments with her, especially if they were also moments _alone_. "Depends on how pissed off Tyler is," I reminded her. "And besides, you're near a road - someone might accidentally run you over if I'm not there." My tone was teasing, but it really was something to worry about.

We left the cafe bickering about the likelihood of a car hitting her without an icy road as a catalyst.

She turned to wave to Esme once more as we turned the corner. "Thank you for introducing me," she said, ignoring my last volley in favor of changing to a new subject.

"Thank you for letting me," I replied.

"Do you think," she asked, her brows knitting together, and then paused, seemingly absorbed in avoiding puddles on the sidewalk.

"Frequently," I replied after a moment of waiting for her to go on.

She grinned. "If there were something that I couldn't talk to Charlie about, and that my mom couldn't help me with over the phone for some reason, do you think Esme would mind if I talked to her about it? There's nothing right now," she added quickly, "and it would actually be pretty weird if something like that came up, but - but I really like her and she just _feels_ like a mother."

"I don't think there's anything you could do that would make her happier," I assured Isobel as we came to a stop beside her truck.

She turned around to look at me in spite of the rain. "Okay. Thanks."

"Of course."

There was a moment of awkward silence and I knew I should go. "Goodbye, Isobel," I managed, shoving my hands deep in the pockets of my jacket to keep myself from reaching out and touching her.

"Bye, Edward," she replied, her eyes fixed on my face. With her face upturned that way she seemed to be asking to be kissed, and I wanted very much to oblige. Before I had more than a brief second to wrestle with the temptation, though, she laughed at my expression and reached out to give my shoulder a playful shove. "You don't have to look so forlorn about it. I'll see you tomorrow."

"I know." An eternity. I leaned in just a little, deliberately taking a deep breath of her scent and letting the burn in my throat reassure me that she was right there in front of me. "Goodbye," I repeated, forcing myself to take a step backward.

She took it as permission to leave - no doubt eager to get out of the rain - and turned around. That made it a little easier to turn away myself, and in a few moments I joined Esme in her car.

"Oh Edward," Esme sighed at me as I closed the door, "she's _perfect_ for you - _and_ for us. Are you certain there's nothing to be done?"

I thought of Isobel standing in the rain, looking up at me, traced the soft perfection of her lips, of her cheek, of her jaw, in my mind - and paired that image with the pale-skinned horror Alice had seen in her visions of the future. Or, worse - that other image. The one in which Isobel was dead - truly, irretrievably dead.

My head fell forward into my hands. "I just don't know anymore," I told Esme.


	21. Chapter 21

Note: I finished a couple of chapters this week, so I'll toss this one up a little early. Also, I have absolutely never named a computer "Ophelia" for precisely the reason Isobel has in this chapter. Nope. Totally did not take that from real life.

* * *

XXI.

Charlie thought I was crazy, I could see it in his eyes. Even so, he agreed to stand in the rain to witness it as I poured a bottle of Perrier - the fanciest sparkling water I had found at the grocery store - over my truck. I decided against breaking the bottle - I didn't have any inclination to spend my evening picking glass shards up off the driveway. "Her name is Simone," I told him as I hopped out of the bed and made a beeline for the door. I wanted to do the thing properly, but I didn't want to spend longer in the rain than I needed to.

"You name boats, not cars," he told me, following.

" _You_ may not name cars, but _I_ do. Sometimes other things, too," I added, tapping my laptop as I passed the dining room table where I had left it.

"Oh yeah?" he replied. "What's the computer's name?"

"Ophelia," I sighed. "She tends to go crazy and commit suicide a lot." I needed a new computer, and probably soon. They weren't making drivers compatible with my operating system anymore, which sometimes made Ophelia reluctant to boot up at all and quite frequently caused her to restart unexpectedly.

Charlie shook his head at me. "Sometimes you remind me so much of Renee."

I made a face at that, but he wasn't wrong. Mostly I was like him, but there were hints of Renee here and there. I supposed my easy attachment to inanimate objects was one of them. Compared with Renee I was about as imaginative as a rock, but Charlie was certainly even less fanciful than I was.

"About the truck," Charlie began.

"Simone," I corrected him impishly.

He didn't acknowledge my interruption. "I was thinking we might want to paint her this summer when we get a nice enough stretch of weather." I considered it a minor victory, at least, that he was referring to Simone with a gendered pronoun. "Could do it in the garage, but it will make a mess…"

"I'd rather do it outside," I told him quickly.

"Me too," he replied with a chuckle. "Might want to start thinking about what colors you'd like."

"Hmm, yeah, I will," I said. "Thanks."

I served dinner and afterward laid out my homework on the table, taking out the cookies from the cafe to make the work a little more palatable. They were good - well worth returning to the cafe for so that I could try them with the tea. Of course...wanting to go back had a lot more to do with an angelic boy with bronze hair, a caramel voice and mesmerizing eyes. I felt myself blushing and was glad Charlie had already retreated to the living room to watch TV, as per our usual evening ritual. Sometimes, if I didn't have too much to do and if he wasn't watching sports, I joined him when I was finished.

Tonight Jessica called me before I could do that.

I had somehow forgotten Jessica's surprise at my new friendship with Alice - meeting Esme had driven it from my mind. That wasn't, it turned out, what Jessica had called to talk about, though.

"Mike agreed to go to the dance with me!" she squealed as soon as I answered. I actually had to pull the phone away from my ear a bit - I didn't want her excitement to give me hearing loss.

"That's great, Jess," I told her, trying to muster up the enthusiasm I would have felt _before_ he had asked me to go with him. I wondered if it was a breach of friendship not to tell her about that. If it ended up working out for them, though - I would be no more than a minor footnote, just a girl he had briefly been unreasonably interested in before he settled down for a relationship with someone he actually got along well with. It had to be clear to Mike - I was certain I had _made_ it clear - that I had no interest in him as long as Jessica did. Hopefully he also understood the implication that I didn't have much more if she _didn't_ have any.

"Are you going to ask anyone?" she wondered, her tone hopeful now that she had secured Mike's regard, at least for that one night.

It was sweet that she wanted me to be there. "No," I told her. "I'm going to Seattle that day to get some shelves I need that I can't really get here."

"Dumb," she told me. "Why do you have to do it the day of the dance?"

I chuckled at her irritation. "Come on, Jess - you've seen me in gym. Do you _really_ think I can dance?"

"Well…" she said, sounding reluctant, and then began to laugh. "Yeah, I guess that might be dangerous - for _everyone_."

"Exactly," I agreed.

"You'll come shopping with me, though, right?" she asked. "Angela and June are both free this Saturday, so we figured we'd all go to Port Angeles together to find something to wear. Maybe catch a movie while we're there - get dinner - you know, just have a fun girls' day."

"Yeah, sounds great," I agreed. "Besides, it's always best to have one impartial bystander there, right? _I_ don't need anything, so I can concentrate on helping you guys look good."

"Like _hell_ you don't need anything," Jessica scoffed. "I've seen your wardrobe, remember? You should bring any extra money you have and we can pick out a few non-dance-related items to improve your look a little."

"Okay, okay," I said, not putting up a fight. There was a very good chance that she was right. "We might have to bargain shop, though."

"That's even more fun," she assured me.

We chatted for a while about what kind of dress she thought she might want, and then she filled me in on the guys whom Angela and June had asked - had been prodded into asking, in Angela's case. It was almost time for me to go to bed by the time we hung up, so I immediately went up to take a shower and brush my teeth, leaving Charlie to his football game with a good-night tossed back over my shoulder.

The next morning, Edward was waiting for me again when I arrived at school. "Are you ditching class just to talk to me?" I demanded as he met me near my truck.

A smile pulled at his mouth. "Not the entire class," he replied. "Just the last few minutes. I can get my homework from Alice."

"So what is it today?" I asked. "Am I meeting your father this time?"

"You already met him," he reminded me, starting off across the parking lot.

It was natural to fall in beside him. "Not socially," I countered.

He laughed. "It's not that. I wondered if you might be more amenable to eating lunch with me _and_ Alice."

I considered the question. "Yes," I decided, "but only if you'll both agree to join _my_ friends as often as I join your family."

"Not the whole family," he said quickly. "Not yet. Just me and Alice."

That was strange. Maybe some of them didn't approve of my inclusion into even the periphery of their cult. "The deal still stands," I told him.

He sighed and grimaced. "Are you sure there's room at the table?" he asked, avoiding giving an answer.

"We can pull up more chairs. The two of you don't exactly need table space since you don't even eat at school."

That seemed to surprise him. "I didn't know you'd noticed," he murmured.

"I notice a lot of things," I informed him, "and you still haven't said whether you'll agree to it or not."

We reached the overhang that partially sheltered the space in front of the gym, allowing me to look up at him more easily. I pinned him with my gaze as he shifted uncomfortably.

"Very well," he growled.

" _Both_ of you," I stipulated.

"Alice won't mind," he muttered.

That implied that he was the one who did. "Why do you?" I wondered.

He gave me a sharp glance and shook his head. "It's not the kind of thing I can explain easily."

Because his dislike of my friends was complicated or because it somehow touched on the secrets I had promised not to ask about? "Whatever," I returned with a shrug, feeling a little annoyed at my promise. They were so _weird_ and I wanted to know _why_.

His eyes went heavenward as though he was asking for patience and he sighed. "I suppose it might not be so bad now."

"What's different now?" I asked, even more lost.

The question didn't even seem to register with him. "For today you'll sit with us, though, right?"

"Sure, why not?" I replied, giving up.

His smile appeared like the sun coming out from behind the clouds and I stopped breathing, awed, realizing that I had never seen him look _really_ happy before. There had always been a hint of some other emotion tempering his expression. Happiness on him was...quite literally breathtaking. We stared at each other for a long moment and his gaze began softening, melting, warming, until there were goosebumps up and down my arms under my coat and I thought even the hair on my head might be in danger of standing on end. The fluttering in my stomach seemed to blend seamlessly with the burning in my lungs. He took a step towards me slowly, almost unwillingly, and his expression became pained.

The change freed me and I sucked in a lungful of air as I dragged my eyes away from him. "Jeez, Edward, would you stop _doing_ that?"

"Unintentional, I assure you," he murmured. His face was turned away from me when I looked at him again.

The bell for the end of second period rang, saving me from having to come up with something else to say. "I'll see you in an hour," I sighed at his profile - his beautiful, perfectly chiseled profile. Even annoyed, I couldn't help admiring it.

He nodded without looking at me and I headed for trig.

Mike had claimed the seat on the other side of Jessica today, and she managed to tone down her excitement over their upcoming date enough to seem reasonably nonchalant. He studiously ignored me while I accepted, gratefully, the distraction that Alice provided when she stopped to talk with me about Esme. I was just as glad that the conversation wasn't about Edward. I didn't know whether to resent his stupid overbearing charm or to try throwing my arms around him to see if kissing him - with my eyes firmly closed, of course - made him _more_ or _less_ overwhelming.

It seemed, generally speaking, like the kind of experiment _someone_ should run. Just for the data, of course.

Alice started to leave as the warning bell rang, but then hesitated and leaned down toward me. "You should ask Edward to the dance," she whispered, instantly removing half the comfort I had been finding in our conversation.

"That's not going to happen," I replied at the same volume, rolling my eyes. Leaving aside the dancing problem, if he tried to touch me while also doing that - thing - he did with his eyes and his voice, I was afraid my heart and lungs might _both_ forget what they were supposed to be doing.

Well, that wasn't actually true, but the part where I couldn't dance was a fairly insurmountable problem when it came to, you know, attending a dance.

"I know," Alice pouted at me, "but you really, really should."

I wondered what _that_ meant, but I just shook my head at her. "I'll see you after class."

Though, as promised, Jessica and I did join Alice in walking to gym after trig, there was no time for her to accost me again - Jessica was full of her plans with Mike, bursting with the glee she hadn't been willing to show in his actual presence. I rolled my eyes a little at her, but was congratulatory enough to satisfy her need to have her conquest recognized.

Part of me was grateful to be sitting with Alice and Edward at lunch - it seemed I could only take so much of Jessica when she was this loudly absorbed in her own affairs. I didn't know how she managed to stay so exuberant. Just listening to her made me feel tired. As an exercise in empathy, I tried to imagine how I would feel in her place if it were, say, Edward, but I suspected that, in between bouts of anxiety, I would be dreamy rather than elated.

I made sure to tell Jess about my temporary lunchtime defection only after Alice had caught back up with us after gym in order to prevent any protests. "I'll definitely be back tomorrow, though," I added, hoping to mollify her, "and Alice and Edward will join us then, too."

"Oh," Jessica responded, her eyes going wide. "That would be...great."

It was hard not to laugh. She seemed to already be getting used to walking to gym with Alice, but the thought of eating lunch with her - and Edward, I supposed - was still enough to freak her out a little.

Alice linked her arm through mine and smiled at Jessica. "I don't have any objections. It's Edward who wants to keep Isobel all to himself."

Oh God, was she _trying_ to get Jessica to spread rumors about me and Edward? I gave her ankle a little kick that I hoped was subtle enough to escape everyone else's attention. Alice's smile only widened, though, and I realized that she truly was planting the idea in Jessica's head on purpose. It looked like I wasn't going to have much of a choice - I would have to talk to Jessica about him _soon_ , even though I had planned on waiting until I decided definitively that I _wanted_ to date him. Or at least that my desire to do so wasn't more than counterbalanced by consequences that I wanted to avoid.

I added a repressive frown to my kick as soon as Jessica's back was turned.

Alice just laughed.

"Why are you trying so hard to set us up?" I demanded in a whisper as she steered me toward the table that Edward had claimed.

There wasn't really time for her to answer - especially with Edward's super-hearing - so she shushed me and then pointed out, sounding slightly displeased, the heaping tray of food that Edward had acquired. It looked like there was one of everything the cafeteria offered. "Holy crap," I said, my eyes going wide. I left a couple of chairs between myself and Edward - a position from which I would be able to see both him and his sister - and sat down. "Did you decide to feast on cafeteria food for once?"

"No," he replied. "I didn't know what you liked."

"That's all for _me_?" I asked, slightly appalled. "I brought my own lunch today."

"Alice and I will share some of it with you, of course," he said.

"Edward - " I began, ready to tell him that, while food scarcity might not exist in Hollywood cult land, it was a very real thing here in the land of normal people.

"We'll take any leftovers home with us," Alice said quickly, taking a bottle of water from Edward's selection. " _Someone_ will eat them."

"Alright," I agreed, somewhat appeased. I took a dish of cubed apples spiced with cinnamon and pulled out my sandwich. Most cafeteria food wasn't that great, but a little extra fruit would make a nice addition to my lunch. "So why did the two of you want to spend lunch with me so badly?" I asked as I unwrapped the sandwich.

Edward hesitated and Alice answered for them both: "It's just because we like you. There's nothing in _particular_ that needs to be said." She frowned. "Except that it's an absolute _crime_ that you're not going to the dance."

"No it isn't. Stop it, Alice," Edward growled at her. I wondered what had put him in such a bad mood.

"Are you going?" I asked her.

"Maybe," she answered, giving me a conspiratorial wink, though I had no idea why. "Rosalie and Emmett will be for sure - she and I design a new dress for every single dance and she loves the excuse to show them off. As for me, it all depends on what the future holds."

"You sound like a bad fortune-teller," Edward told her.

"He would be a lot happier - like, _instantly_ \- if you asked him to go with you," she said to me, indicating Edward with a nod.

"Come on, you guys - I have gym with both of you. You should know I can't dance."

"That wouldn't be a problem," Edward said, somehow managing to sound simultaneously confident and sullen. "I can dance. You would only have to follow my lead."

No doubts seemed to trouble him regarding his capabilities in that vein, but I didn't believe it at all.

Alice's hands flew to her mouth. "I could make _you_ a dress," she gasped.

"In two and a half weeks?" I asked.

"Well...that might be cutting things a little close," she allowed. "But from now on! Isobel, you _have_ to go to the dances - you just _have_ to."

I giggled at her rapt expression. "I absolutely do _not_. Although," I said in sudden inspiration, eyeing Edward, "maybe if we made a wager…"

"What kind of wager?" he asked a little suspiciously, noticing that my attention was directed at him and not at his sister.

"When is the next dance?" I asked.

"Beginning of April," Alice supplied, her eyes shining - even though she couldn't _possibly_ know what I was about to propose.

"Okay, starting a month from the date of the dance, you have two weeks to teach me _how_ to dance. If you can do that - I'll go with you and let Alice design my dress."

"Yes, yes, yes!" Alice squealed, bouncing in her chair.

I kept my eyes fixed on Edward - I wasn't making the wager with Alice. He stared back at me, his expression strangely conflicted. "Isobel - I'm not - "

Alice grabbed his arm. "Yes!" she told him, but now it sounded threatening rather than giddy.

His eyes darted between the two of us. "Yes," he ground out at last. "I'll...teach you how to dance."

" _Try_ to teach me," I corrected.

Alice resumed bouncing.

A ghost of a smile touched his lips. "I'm not likely to fail at something like that, Isobel."

"Bravado is a good start," I teased him.

"I'm going to need all your measurements," Alice said, ticking things off her fingers, "your color preferences - which we'll have to actually try against your skin to see what looks best. Fabric we'll shop for together. First, though, I should give you some of my magazines so that you can tell me which dresses you like. Then we'll want to find some in those styles to see what looks good on you…"

"And two and a half weeks is only cutting it a _little_ close?" I asked, slightly dumbfounded.

"Well, I work fast," she told me, lowering her eyes demurely.

"What, without breaks for eating or sleeping?"

She bit her lip. "Both those things are _highly_ overrated."

I could only shake my head.

Alice's prediction turned out to be true, though - making plans, even tentative ones, for a dance, even one that wasn't immediately coming up, seemed to improve Edward's mood. I wondered about that - what had his bad mood been about in the first place? It wasn't exactly something I could ask, though. Instead I got Alice to tell me about Rosalie's dress for the dance - since I wouldn't get to see her wearing it - with Edward adding an occasional dry or pointed comment.

In spite of Edward's reassurance that the tray of food wasn't all for me, he didn't even pretend to eat anything and Alice drank only the bottle of water. It made me wonder why they didn't just _bring_ lunch if they objected that strongly to cafeteria food. Then again, maybe being a Pale Pretty Person required eating only at very specific times of the day, and those times didn't happen to coincide with the school lunch period. At least they did pack up all the leftovers and take them, though. I didn't envy them that sort of dinner, but it also wasn't right to waste food.

At least Alice seemed to understand _that_ much.


	22. Chapter 22

Note: Here we spend some time with the Cullens just being the Cullens. One of the things that's really drawing this story out is the sheer number of relatively important side characters. I counted up 14 or 15 (it partially depends on whom you count as "important"). For reference, in my own writing I usually try to keep it under 10, and my most serious piece has about 7. I also do things like keeping either my main characters or some of the side characters (or both) moving around so that I don't have to deal with all of them, all at once, all the time. Making all _these_ side characters into actual people, and then maintaining them as people, is taking _forever_.

* * *

XXII.

Alice pressed the loaded backpack against my chest. "Face it, you're the logical choice on every level," she told me. "First, you can find homeless people more easily than any of us just by listening for them. Second, it was your brilliant idea to buy Isobel one of everything on offer at school in the _first_ place. Really, Edward, are you _trying_ to make it obvious to her how strange we are?"

I took the backpack and shrugged into it. Maybe I _was_ trying to make it obvious. Maybe I felt guilty for wanting her to be attracted to me. Maybe I felt like I didn't deserve it. And maybe I wanted her to know me - _really_ know me.

Even, maybe, if it meant losing her.

Of course, I wanted and felt all those things and their precise opposites simultaneously, which was likely why Alice found my actions so confusing. I found them confusing myself.

"And don't swim across the sound," she added, pushing me out the door. "Humans don't like water-logged food."

With that parting shot, she closed it in my face.

On one level, having something like this to do was good-it meant that I would not be tempted to go to Isobel's house, lay on her roof and listen to her breathing. On another, it made me impatient and anxious. What if something happened to her while I was gone? My two desires - to be near Isobel and to put enough distance between us to keep her safe from what I might do to her - were, as usual, at war with each other. Knowing that Isobel would likely approve of the task Alice had set me to, however, helped to steady my resolve.

It had been a stupid thing to do, buying so much food - an attempt at an apology that hadn't worked at all and possibly hadn't even been necessary. After seeing her with Esme, I understood what was happening when I let my feelings about her - or anything I really cared about - show a little too clearly. Any of us, with an effort, could do what came to naturally to Esme - that is, mesmerize those who were our prey. Within our family, we generally used our powers to smooth our way through the human world, not to lure humans away to drink them dry. The point was, however, that for me there was usually a conscious effort involved _._

With Isobel...mesmerizing charm apparently came as naturally to me as to Esme.

Isobel didn't seem to care much for being mesmerized, though, and that was what I had been attempting to apologize for. Instead I had annoyed her by wasting food and spent most of the lunch period acting surly out of a complicated blend of remorse, a desire to be with her, and guilt over that desire. Maybe I needed to apologize for my apology, I thought wryly.

It took me nearly six hours to run to Seattle and back going around the Puget Sound rather than through it. In between my trips to and from, I put on the guise of an angel of mercy - not at all the role I had once played, when I stalked through city streets looking to punish the evil. The people I delivered my backpack full of food to - four men and a single woman - were grateful. They were humbly, abjectly, shamingly grateful, their manners telling me that humility, abjection and shame were regularly expected from them. I didn't know how to set them at ease, and so I was brusque and left them quickly.

They were grateful for that, too.

I spent the first part of the run back to Forks reflecting on human difficulties that I rarely bothered with - such as that of food. Vampire food was problematic because it usually consisted of the lives of thinking, rational beings. There wasn't much trouble in _obtaining_ said food, but the moral implications were...unpleasant. It hadn't occurred to me to wonder why so many humans went hungry. My family went out of our way to support local food banks wherever we happened to live. Before food banks had sprung up, we had supported church efforts that tended the same need. Somehow it had never occurred to me to wonder about the _reasons_ that these efforts were necessary, though. It had always simply been...a fact of human life. Or human incompetence, perhaps. Carlisle encouraged charity because he valued life in all its forms. The rest of us, having each, at one time or another, ended human lives, felt that perhaps we owed a debt to the rest of humanity.

Now, though, my lack of curiosity struck me as strange. Was I so self-absorbed? Some things I couldn't help knowing - I understood famines that affected individual regions, but the United States was a wealthy country. I was reasonably certain there wasn't an overpopulation problem in the sense that agriculture was incapable of providing for everyone. Was it a problem of infrastructure? Of human organization? Perhaps, I thought ruefully, they needed a few vampires with perfect recall to aid their efforts.

Carlisle would doubtless be able to explain the underlying issues to me if I felt like asking, but _Isobel_ was not going hungry, which was my primary concern. It was unlikely that I held any power to save the rest of the human world. If it were that easy, I was confident that Carlisle would already have some sort of plan in motion to improve conditions. He cared at least as much as I never had.

Still...I would try to pay more attention. It was that human world, so little regarded by me, that contained my Isobel and the people she loved.

There were two conversations occurring simultaneously between my siblings in the main room when I arrived back home. Upstairs, Carlisle and Esme were flirtatiously arguing over one of Carlisle's translations. It wasn't going to remain an argument for long, so I carefully tuned them out both mentally and as much as I could with my physical hearing, choosing to focus instead on what my siblings were doing.

Emmett made it easy by greeting my entrance by roaring my name and beckoning me over. "Yo, Edward! You'll race with us, right man?"

Jasper snorted. "He hasn't been paying attention to his cars lately," he drawled, his accent making an appearance now that we were relaxing at home. For most part, he adopted an American standard accent for the purposes of not standing out from the rest of us, but at home it obviously didn't matter. "Edward has had," he shot me a little smirk, "other things on his mind."

"He'll have all day Friday," Emmett argued before returning his attention to me. "You'll have all day Friday to make improvements, so that - "

"Friday?" I asked, interrupting. His thoughts were going so many directions at once that I couldn't immediately decide what Friday had to do with anything.

"It's going to be sunny Friday and Saturday," Alice chirped without turning from her seat at the desk. "At least intermittently." She and Rosalie were finalizing a few of the details for Rosalie's dress for the dance.

"Rose'll help you," Emmett told me encouragingly.

"No I won't," Rosalie sniffed. She was still annoyed over my attentions to Isobel, though I didn't entirely understand why. Alice was worse than I was, and _she_ wasn't being forced to dodge Rose's ire.

Emmett rolled his eyes at his mate. "Don't spoil our fun, baby. After all, if he's here working on his car, he won't be chasing - "

Rosalie slammed her hand down on the desk and turned to glare at him. "Edward can fucking chase whatever he fucking wants all the way to fucking _hell_ for all I care."

Alice's hand stopped moving across her screen, a guilty grimace twisting her features, and Jasper stilled, carefully not looking at me. I understood Alice's guilt - she was the one doing her level best to orchestrate my eventual helpless fall into Isobel's embrace. Rose really knew how to make a situation uncomfortable.

Luckily Emmett knew exactly how to defuse it again. He grinned at her, wiggling his eyebrows. "The mouth on you. You know I love it when you talk dirty to me, baby."

For a moment fury warred with humor in Rosalie's expression, but then humor won out. She laughed at him, though it didn't improve her attitude towards me. "Edward should be glad I'm not ripping any of his cars to shreds." She cast me a sidelong glance and tossed her hair. "I'm not helping him." _With anything!_ she thought pointedly at me, casting one more glare over her shoulder for good measure.

I shook my head. At some point I would need to get to the bottom of her dislike for Isobel, especially if - certain events kept becoming more probable. For now, though… "You're racing Friday night? Wouldn't Thursday be safer?" I asked my brothers. Humans out late on a Friday night was a lot more likely than humans out late on a Thursday night.

"We're going to use one of the logging roads," Emmett told me, sounding excited. "No one'll be out there - that's a reason you should come, though. You can listen for intrusions."

"Gravel roads'll be a new challenge," Jasper added, his lazy tone masking his interest.

"Narrow, too," Emmett agreed.

"You're going to destroy your cars," I told them. There was a reason races weren't held on narrow gravel roads. Our coordination was infinitely better than a human's, true, but even we weren't infallible. Accidents happened.

I had to admit, though, that the challenge was...interesting.

" _Probably_ nothing will be broken that can't be fixed," Alice put in helpfully, most of her attention centered on imagining pieces of jewelry that would look good paired with her latest collaborative effort with Rosalie.

"So don't drive your Aston Martin," Emmett told me, rolling his eyes.

I snorted. "My Aston Martin isn't going anywhere _near_ a gravel road, for _any_ reason."

"You all ever thought maybe we should invest in some dirt bikes?" Jasper asked.

Emmett's eyes went wide. " _Yes_."

"For Friday?" I asked, thinking it was rather short notice.

"Nah," Jasper replied. "Just something to think about for the future. As long as we're living here and all."

"Are you in or what?" Emmett demanded of me.

It was a good question. I _did_ need things besides Isobel to occupy my nights, and if I was doomed to a three-day weekend...it might be best to focus my attention elsewhere. "Yeah, I'm in," I sighed.

Emmett ignored my lack of enthusiasm and let out a whoop of excitement. "What'll you drive?" he asked. His own preference was for domestic muscle cars - he had a '78 Mustang King Cobra and '67 Pontiac GTO - but for the racing he did with Jasper and sometimes me or Esme, he preferred newer, lighter cars that took corners better. He had a Corvette with an engine that Rosalie had completely rebuilt for him more than once, each time coming up with and incorporating her own design innovations. It was a good car - faster on straight-aways than anything Jasper or I had so far found to race - but Jasper's Audi R8 was at a distinct advantage when it came to handling turns. Depending on what she had most recently done to it, Esme's Porsche could sometimes take his Corvette on speed, handling, or both.

I didn't have a "usual" racing car, but I had recently acquired a Tesla Model S. Given its low center of gravity, I thought it might be able to keep up with Jasper's Audi. And if I wrecked it beyond repair - well, they were still in production and I could always buy a new one. Maybe with a better battery. "I might give the Tesla a try," I told Emmett, rubbing my jaw thoughtfully.

"Edward, we're racing _cars_ here," Emmett scoffed, "not battery-powered _toys_."

"Emmett…" Rosalie began automatically in a threatening tone, just before she remembered exactly whom the Tesla she was about to defend belonged to. She bit her tongue.

"You can ride along with me, if you want," I told her, trying to shame her into better behavior with my generosity. Rose had been vocal in her admiration of the engineering that went into the Teslas. The chance to master a new kind of engine, one that didn't rely on internal combustion, also interested her immensely.

She sniffed and didn't answer immediately, but I knew she was peeking at me through the curtain of golden hair that she kept firmly in place between us.

"Think of it as a peace offering," I continued, aware of exactly how much I was tempting her. Whenever the time came to draw from her the reasons she disliked Isobel so much, they would come much more easily if she wasn't throwing her energy into holding me at bay with an unceasing barrage of mental insults.

"Alright," she agreed at last, stiffly.

Emmett pretended to be hurt over her betrayal, but stopped insulting my car.

"Hmm," Alice said, "I'd advise you to race in pairs. The chances of a car-destroying wreck go up considerably if all three of you are racing at once."

"Good call, darlin'," Jasper said.

"That's no fun," Emmett protested.

"It means multiple races," I reminded Emmett.

His face immediately brightened. "Oh yeah, that _is_ a good call." With that decided, he judged the conversation over. He took up a station at Rosalie's side and began a whispered campaign aimed at convincing her to ride with _him_ in his race against me. She could, he reminded her, always ride with me when I raced Jasper. I could tell immediately that Rose would give in, but she strung him along for a while, enjoying the attention and lavish compliments he expended in his attempt to win her over. I shook my head at them and went to the piano. Soon Jasper, Alice and I would need some means of drowning out _their_ amorous activities, as well.

I had been handed a plan for filling up my entire Friday, I thought as I played. Upon further reflection, however, I was unconvinced that I would be able to stay away from Isobel for three days. Two, last weekend, had been enough to tax me to my limit, and that was even with the relief of knowing that Alice was spending much of one day with her. My best option was likely to come up with some event I could invite her to either Saturday evening or Sunday.

Nothing immediately came to mind, but if I asked Isobel what she planned to do with her weekend, maybe it would give me an idea or two. If not, Alice might be able to come up with a suggestion. At worst, I could probably see if she wanted to study together. It was cheesy and not what I wanted to do - especially since I would have to pretend to study - but I didn't see how doing anything with Isobel could be worse than doing anything without her.

Emmett and Rosalie, as predicted, disappeared upstairs a few minutes later. Jasper rose a little later and kissed Alice's hair, and then left the house - probably headed out to his corner of our collective workshop. When he wasn't romancing Alice, racing, or playing games with Emmett, he carved little wooden animals to delight Alice, or occasionally went to the trouble of planning out and making a themed chess set. They were always amazing works of art, which was why he hadn't made very many. Carlisle and Emmett had each received one of his sets as a gift, customized to suit their tastes. Carlisle's was a classic set, with little pikemen as pawns, mounted cavalry as knights, bishops in flowing robes, and kings and queens in furs and jewels with haughty expressions. Each piece was unique, depicted in either birch or mahogany. Emmett's, in contrast, was done in walnut and maple, and featured, on one side, commandos in futuristic military get-up and, on the other, fantastic insectoid aliens.

Neither of them had anything on the set Jasper had made for Alice, though. It was huge, for one thing, as well as being exquisitely detailed. Forest animals represented in cherry wood made up one team, while fairies and other mythological creatures, carved in golden maple, made up the other. Foxes served as the cherry pawns, each one in a different playful pose. The rooks were trees blowing in the wind and featured _actual_ rooks - the bird - peeking out from between their leaves. The knights were wolves, one howling while the other stalked forward in a crouch; the bishops were a serene doe and a majestic buck. A lazy black bear acted as the king, a few trailing willow branches circling one ear and serving as a crown, and a roaring grizzly, her cubs peeking out from behind her, made a formidable queen. The fantastical side was equally inventive: brownies, dwarves and pixies for pawns, unicorns as knights, a dryad and naiad as bishops, towering treants as rooks, and, overseeing all, a reclining Oberon and Titania, reaching their hands across the space that separated their squares as they sat waiting for the game to begin. Alice rarely played chess, but it was her prized possession. When she _was_ convinced to play, she always claimed the cherry wood animals as her own and inevitably lost - even with her gift of foresight - because she was never willing to sacrifice even a single mischievous fox pawn.

Simpler sets had been donated to various children's hospitals across the world as we moved from place to place. Carlisle knew better than anyone how much difference just having something to _do_ could make for children and families who were stuck staying in hospitals for extended periods of time. When Jasper got the urge to make something more artistic, it generally ended up getting donated to some charity auction or another.

I played the piano until it was time to get ready for school, occasionally trying to come up with something I could do with Isobel that wouldn't seem suspiciously like a date, but mostly just enjoying the music. Alice's absent-minded appreciation formed another incentive to continue playing - she didn't want to hear what was going on upstairs any more than I did and hummed along happily with some of her favorite pieces.

She was still in a good mood on our way to school, her hand curled around a haughty little hen that Jasper had given her when he returned from the workshop. "I meant for it to be a hawk," he told Alice, "but sometimes a piece of wood just wants to be a damned chicken."

"Isn't that just how chickens are?" she giggled, taking the figure. She hadn't put it down since. Jasper's carvings were the closest things she had to pets - animals tended to be wary of vampires. Dogs didn't howl or cats screech when we walked by, but they certainly didn't cozy up to us, either.

Even predators who usually resided at the top of the food chain had the sense to recognize when something deadlier than themselves was nearby.

One of my songs was still running through her mind as she sat next to me, looking out the window. I focused in on her because Emmett and Rosalie were still quite wrapped up in each other and the - er, exercise - they had just barely finished in time for us to leave. Safer to keep my mind firmly in the _front_ of the car. It meant, too, I was paying attention as Alice took the now-customary precaution of looking over my day. Between Isobel's ridiculously overpowering scent and what had nearly happened with Tyler's car, consulting her visions regularly and frequently seemed like the wisest course.

 _You'd better stay in class today,_ Alice thought at me, noting Isobel's wariness in the event that I went out to meet her after second period _again_. I nodded - it was best not to come on too strong, no matter how badly I might want to. That was, after all, why I was trying _not_ to ask her on a date this weekend.

For the first time, Alice caught the edge of my half-formed intention to make weekend plans with Isobel. _Sorry, Edward, that's not going to work,_ she thought, showing me a few of our possible conversations. All of them ended with Isobel telling me that she was going to be in Port Angeles Saturday night with Jessica, Angela and June, and would be spending Sunday with her father's closest friend and the friend's son. I sincerely hoped that the son was either pre-pubescent or married with several children, but I could see that asking about it wouldn't end well for me. She was too perceptive not to notice my obvious jealousy.

 _Hmm, maybe I could get an invite to that movie they're going to see Saturday night_ , Alice mused as I reluctantly gave up on interrogating Isobel about this guy she would be spending half her weekend with. _Then_ , Alice added for my benefit, still making plans in her devious little way, _maybe we can find some way to get you invited along, too._

She began searching through possible futures. I left her to it, trusting that she would have a way to manipulate the lunchtime conversation in my favor by the time it rolled around.

Moments like this made me glad Alice was my sister.

"Mmm," Alice said suddenly, "we'd better avoid biology today. They're blood-typing."

"You sure Edward is still vampire enough to want plain old non-Isobel blood?" Jasper asked from the back seat, not looking away from the window.

Everyone in the car got a chuckle out of that - even Rosalie deigned to laugh - while I rolled my eyes. So nice that they were getting some amusement out of my discomfort. Jasper did have a point, though - not about my vampirism, but if I could avoid devouring Isobel, it seemed foolish to worry overmuch about others who held barely a fraction of the attraction she held for me. I glanced at Alice.

She shrugged. "Better to be safe," she chirped at me.

True. Slaughtering a biology class would probably put a damper on my weekend plans, no matter what it turned out I was doing.


	23. Chapter 23

Note: Got another long one here, so no update until next week. I'm sorry for that, but I hope you enjoy the chapter. I think the next one will be worth the wait, too.

* * *

XXIII.

I spent the drive to school going over and over what I wanted to say to Jessica in my mind. Angela had kindly given me pointers on the phone last night - after, first, a full play-by-play of my date with Tyler, and, second, an extended and unenlightening conversation about her inability to speak to Edward. After we had gotten nowhere on the latter subject - he apparently "just made her so nervous" that she couldn't even think - she had tried to channel Jessica so that I could practice my conversation with her. Unfortunately her impression of Jessica was so dead-on that it quickly had me convulsing with laughter, and our practice had ended in giggles as I made her show me her impressions of the rest of our friends. Somehow she managed to capture every single one of them in the most hilarious way without once being mean. The best was when I convinced her to do her impression of me and she just started throwing out four- and five-syllable words at random. I nearly laughed myself to death. I loved Angela.

Edward, thankfully, was not waiting to distract me this morning, so I made my way quickly to the math classroom and waited outside for my quarry. She arrived with Mike, but sent him on ahead when I tapped her arm and indicated that I wanted to talk to her. It was one great thing about Jessica: she _really_ knew how to take a hint.

"There's something I want to talk to you about," I told her. "I was wondering if you'd be free after school today. I thought maybe I could take you out for coffee."

Her flirtatious smile warned me that she fully intended to give me crap for wording the invitation like a date. "Isobel, I know how much you want me, but I already agreed to go to the dance with Mike."

I blushed and stuck my tongue out at her. "That isn't how I meant it, you jerk."

She giggled but then sobered a little. "I don't have a date planned or anything, so I guess we could grab coffee." Her smile dimmed even more. "This isn't about Mike...is it?"

"No," I answered, relieved that she hadn't done something like asking point-blank if he had asked me out. I wasn't very good at lying.

Her smile returned in full force. "Okay, that's good. It will be fun to get coffee."

"I hope so," I agreed. "We'd better go in," I added as I reached around her to open the door. "After you," I told her with what I hoped passed for a suggestive grin.

It must not have been too bad - she batted her eyelashes at me. "Why thank you."

As soon as we sat down she was absorbed in Mike again, of course, but that was fine. I wanted more time to obsessively plan out how to tell her I might date Edward. Asking her to coffee was, after all, only stage one - I still had plenty more stages to worry over.

Alice fell in with us on our way to gym, but was seemingly more interested in talking to Jessica about her plans for the dance than anything else. That was fine - I wanted my friends to get along, and everyone was so weird about the Cullens that I sometimes despaired of that desire ever becoming a reality. The best way to get inside Jessica's defenses was undoubtedly to show interest in things that excited her, and in many ways Jess was the key to the rest of our group. Besides, I could keep worrying about my after-school conversation with her literally all day. It was nice of Alice to make it less obvious that my mind was somewhere else, even if she didn't know she was doing me a favor.

Jessica roped June into the conversation pretty much as soon as we made it to the locker room, and I was required to pay attention as my opinion on relative dress sluttiness was called for. It demanded more attention than it might otherwise have since I had to come up with an opinion on the spot - I had never given the question any consideration, possibly because I had never gone to a dance and usually avoided dresses. Wearing anything with a skirt didn't make sense considering how much more embarrassing falling on my face would be if I _also_ had to worry about everyone seeing my underwear.

I noticed absently that June spent the entire conversation just as absently playing with a bandage on her finger and wondered, in between trying to answer questions about how short was _too_ short for a skirt, what she had done to herself.

Jessica only reluctantly admitted that we should get dressed for class when the bell rang, so we all went to our lockers, conveniently located near each other. June was on the other side of Jessica, so I didn't see exactly what happened, but I heard a muffled "crap" as I shoved my coat into my locker and looked down to see her blood-streaked bandage on the floor. It didn't seem like she had removed it purposely, but she decided to take advantage of the accident. "Check it out," she said, shoving her slightly mangled finger towards us, "Tyler - that dumbass - bumped into me while I was trying to poke my finger in biology for blood-typing this morning. Mr. Banner thought he was going to have to pull out the gauze."

She managed to get most of the way through her explanation before the scent hit me - the bandage had absorbed a lot of blood, and the deep, nearly inch-long cut on the pad of her finger wasn't completely scabbed over. I was already backing away as she finished, but I could feel my breathing speeding up and knew that in a moment I would be getting dizzy -

"Ew," I heard Jessica say, as though in slow motion, "I don't want to poke my finger…"

Then Alice was there, supporting me. "Come on," she squeaked, pulling me to the door.

"What's wrong?" Jessica asked as I stumbled in turning. The air burned through my lungs as dark spots started appearing before my eyes.

"I don't think Isobel likes blood," Alice tossed back over her shoulder, her voice still higher and squeakier than usual, as she yanked the door open.

Somehow I found myself in the hall sitting with my back against the wall as Alice forced my head between my knees. "Just breathe," she advised me.

Now that I was away, I _was_ breathing - only slightly faster than normal, even - and I didn't think I would faint this time. I still felt sick to my stomach, though, and all my limbs were trembling.

Someone - multiple someones - had followed us out into the hall. It occurred to me that there was a lot of noise - Alice was speaking, sounding irritated. Feet moved into my very limited line of sight, retreated, came back, and then stayed there, though their owner seemed to be shifting uncomfortably. There was a touch on my shoulder and I pulled my knees in closer to my body. Then another voice cut across the babble - "Move," it ordered, as cold and musical as a set of chimes. I knew that voice, though not the tone.

Suddenly there was a coat wrapped around me and I was being lifted. "No," I groaned, feeling my stomach lurch as my head went dizzy again with the movement. "I'm going to be sick," I added, pleading.

"I don't think so," that same voice from earlier said just above my head. It was warmer now. "It's fine if you are, though. I don't mind."

Edward. Of course it was Edward. My own personal goddamned guardian. "Put me down," I demanded, feeling my cheeks heat as the roiling in my stomach picked up its pace.

"Alice," he said, ignoring me, "let Coach Clapp know that I'm taking her to the nurse."

"Sure, Edward," Alice chirped in return, sounding normal again.

Edward redirected his attention to me. "Relax," he advised me. "Getting worked up won't help your stomach."

He was right, which was almost as annoying as the fact he had picked me up in the first place. "This is a kidnapping," I huffed, but I found myself leaning, tentatively, against his chest. He smelled like...soap and something else that I couldn't name. Something...spicy? I wasn't sure. The jacket - his jacket - that he had wrapped around me to keep the cold off smelled the same way. It wasn't quite like any other scent I had ever encountered. It made me feel dizzy again, but in a much more pleasant way.

His laughter in response to my complaint sounded almost giddy. "I dare you to bring it up to your father."

Yeah, right - Charlie was probably already mentally marrying me off to Edward and would definitely approve of him getting me medical care as soon as possible, no matter my opinion. We came to the end of the hall and Edward turned to lean on the push-bar for the outer door. "I don't need you to carry me, I'm fine," I insisted, blinking in the brighter light outdoors. "I just get faint around blood."

Something about it seemed to amuse him. "I caught that," he told me as he chuckled darkly. "Still," he went on, "fainting isn't good. You need to get checked out."

"I was never actually unconscious," I retorted. _This time_ , I added silently. "It's just a panic attack. People sometimes faint from panic attacks."

"People _also_ faint from anemia, low blood sugar, heartbeat abnormalities, and - stop me if you've heard this one - blows to the head." I looked up and found him watching me with a stern expression. Doctor's son. Right.

"Come off it, Edward - it's been more than a week. If I'd really hurt my head, it would have shown up before now." He opened his mouth to argue, but I hurried on. "Anyway, it's not going to the nurse I object to." Chance to legitimately skip gym? Yes, _please_. "It's being _carried_ to the nurse that bothers me."

"You're _shaking_ ," he retorted. "If I put you down, you'd fall over." He grinned. "Faster than normal, I mean."

"Ass," I muttered at him. "I could have walked if you'd given me a few minutes." It was true, but now that my stomach was subsiding - the cold air seemed to help - being carried by Edward wasn't so bad. Later I knew I would find it really, _really_ embarrassing, but right now I was too shaky and tired to care. Being held felt nice. I rested my head against his collarbone and closed my eyes.

"You should be grateful to me for getting you away," he went on, thankfully unaware of my current feelings of resignation regarding his actions. "Everyone was crowded around and if you'd thrown up, it would have been on someone's shoes."

I opened my eyes long enough to glare at him. "Throwing up on someone's shoes is a lot better than throwing up on someone's _shirt_ , which is what would have happened if I'd been sick on _you_."

"It's not better in this case since, as I believe I mentioned earlier, I wouldn't have cared."

I shook my head and didn't answer. It was a stupid thing to argue about. Everyone cared when someone threw up on them, and, even if he somehow didn't, _I_ still would have cared since everyone else would have seen it. Then I would have been "that girl who uses too many five-syllable words and threw up on the hottest guy in the state." I pretty much would have had to immediately get my GED and go to college in another country. Preferably Australia. No - _preferably_ Antarctica, but I was reasonably sure there were no colleges there. My best bet for getting there would have been majoring in biology or environmental science and then, as a grad student, getting on with some professor who did work there.

That _might_ have kept me far enough away for long enough to let my humiliation fade a little.

I hid my face against Edward's chest, trying to block out pointless might-have-beens. He didn't seem to be having much trouble carrying me, and his chest was unsurprisingly firm with muscle. That was - well - it definitely wasn't unpleasant. I felt myself blush and was glad that I was already hiding. Recently-panicked minds tended to be unruly minds, as mine was proving fairly definitively.

I felt Edward shift my weight and looked up in time to see him pull open the door to the office. Mrs. Cope glanced up from her desk and then stared in surprise, and I knew that I was blushing all over again. Damn Edward and his stupid chivalry. Five minutes and I could have _walked_. Two minutes spent cuddled up to him was not worth all this embarrassment.

"What - " the secretary began.

I could hear Edward's reassuring smile in his voice, even though I didn't dare raise my eyes to his face to see it. "They're blood-typing in biology today and someone had to show off her wound to Isobel, who apparently faints at the sight of blood." He snickered quietly again after he said it, still entertained by my phobia.

"Here," Mrs. Cope said, rising from her chair, "you can put her on the bed in here and I'll go find Mrs. Evans."

"Thanks," Edward replied, entering through the door she held open. It was a small room - just a bed, cabinet, sink and chair. He set me down on the bed. My stomach felt a bit hollow as he removed his hands, which - was freaky and also bullshit. What was wrong with me?

He took the chair.

"You could go back to class, you know," I told him. Embarrassment over the fact that he had carried me, had been seen carrying me, and my own reaction to being released made me a bit surly.

"Not before the nurse gets here," he replied with a cocky little smirk. Know-it-all bastard. "Besides, someone should walk with you to lunch. If you pass out in the parking lot and I'm not there - "

"I'm not going to pass out in the parking lot," I growled at him.

He shrugged and ran his hand through his hair, his smile becoming conflicted. "Blood, huh? I wouldn't have expected that. Is there a story?"

As I opened my mouth to answer, a person who had to be Mrs. Evans pushed the door open further and came in. I closed my mouth. Oh well, it was sort of a long story anyway, and kind of weird. I was handed a cold compress. "For your head, dear," the nurse told me.

"Thanks," I murmured. My hands were still a little shaky, but overall I was doing a lot better.

Her eyes fell on Edward as she came around the side of the bed, reaching for my wrist to take my pulse. "You can - "

He cut her off. "Maybe she should eat something. Did you bring a lunch today, Isobel?"

"It's in my truck," I replied with a nod.

"Well…" Mrs. Evans began reluctantly. "It probably can't hurt," she decided.

I fished the keys I hadn't had time to stuff in my locker out of my pocket.

"You lock your doors now?" Edward asked, accepting them from me.

I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, I decided to start after this jerk I know just hopped in the car with me one day to corner me into a conversation I was trying not to have."

He grinned. "Sounds like a real bastard," he agreed easily. "Make sure you complain to your dad about him. Maybe he would be able to teach that jerk some manners."

I made a face at him and he exited the room laughing. Complaining to Charlie didn't help when he was entirely on the side of the jerk in question.

After taking my pulse - which was of course fine - Mrs. Evans took my blood pressure - also fine - and then left me alone to await Edward's return. Well, mostly alone - Mrs. Cope was right outside the open door. I lay back with the cold pack on my head. I had stopped shaking and my stomach was more or less alright, but my face still felt hot - probably from blushing - and the cold felt nice against it.

Well...if I'd needed confirmation that Edward was interested, I no longer did. And it was a really good thing I was talking to Jessica. And I was definitely attracted to him. Terrifyingly attracted. And Angela might have a point about that fear of commitment thing. Only I didn't think it was fear of commitment - more like fear of feeling too much. Fear of passion? I didn't want to do something stupid just because I felt something big and overwhelming. Wasn't that how mistakes were made? Big, scary mistakes like getting married way too early and popping out a kid even way-too-earlier -

I had no intention of repeating my parents' mistakes.

Maybe it was bad to be afraid of feelings? I couldn't tell.

This was...messy.

It got a little messier when Edward returned, smiling like being allowed to retrieve things I probably didn't even need was the equivalent of winning a few hundred dollars in the lottery. When I saw his smile I wasn't even certain I cared about being frightened, which of course made me more frightened.

Ugh.

I took my lunch bag and car key from him and pulled out the two little mandarin oranges I'd brought. "Want one?" I asked him, mostly just to say something, but also because it seemed a little rude to eat in front of him without offering to share.

"I'm fine," he replied.

Right, I'd forgotten about the cultist diet. I got started peeling my first orange, glad to have something to do. We were both silent for a moment, and then he cleared his throat. "You didn't have a chance to tell me about your problem with blood."

"Oh yeah." I'd forgotten, but I was glad he'd brought it up. It would take a little explaining and I wouldn't be able to think - or over-think - while I was telling him about it. "It started - sort of - when I was seven. I went to a birthday party for a girl in my class, and after cake and ice cream we all went outside to play. There aren't really a lot of trees in Arizona, as you might imagine…" I flashed him a grin.

He returned it, causing my cheeks to heat. Damn it.

"Uh…" What had I been talking about? Oh, right, the playhouse. "Well, since there aren't a lot of trees, tree-houses aren't really a thing. My friend, though, had a playhouse raised about four and a half feet off the ground on wooden posts, which pretty much blew my seven-year-old mind. I thought it was the best thing ever."

He laughed. "Did it have a ladder?"

"It had a _rope_ ladder," I replied, "which could be pulled up in order to keep boys and other undesirables from getting in." I finished peeling my first orange and popped half of it in my mouth while he laughed at that, too.

"Did you fall out?" he asked.

I held up one finger as I swallowed and then answered his question before eating the other half: "Only once, but it didn't hurt - I was just scared - and it wasn't that day."

He waited while I finished chewing, swallowed, and started peeling the other orange. "We all started out playing in the playhouse - since it was awesome and all - but after maybe twenty minutes the rest of the kids decided to play a game of tag. I stayed, though. Half the house was dominated by a fantastic play-kitchen, and I was already starting to figure some stuff out about cooking. I liked to pretend to make things."

"That's adorable," he said.

I shook my head. "You've never watched my mom try to cook. It was the first stirrings of an instinctive desire not to get poisoned."

His laughter filled the little room again. Somehow he looked a little startled every time he laughed, giving me the impression that he didn't do it often. I ate half of my second orange.

"I'll try to stop interrupting," he promised a little sheepishly as he got his amusement under control.

I shrugged. "We still have - what - half an hour until lunch? There's no rush."

That seemed to please him. "Right," he agreed.

"Well, anyway," I went on, "there was one girl at the party who was - " I felt my brow furrow. "You know, I don't really remember for certain. I think maybe she was my friend's cousin? It was spring, so I suppose her family was visiting over spring break. She was from Colorado, which, as I'm sure you can imagine, is not nearly as hot as Arizona."

"She got heat stroke?" he guessed.

I nodded. "I'm not sure how it happened, exactly, but after a little bit she came up to the playhouse because it was the only shady spot in the yard - well, other than where the adults were all talking on the deck, but of course she didn't want to subject herself to adult conversation."

"Naturally," he agreed with a smirk.

"She had trouble climbing up the ladder, so I helped to pull her inside. She came in on her stomach and we were both kind of laughing, but when she tried to get up I suppose dehydration or having been in the sun hit her - in any case, she fell over and cut her head on the corner of the counter. My mom told me later that it wasn't too bad, though she was given a couple of stitches, but it started bleeding and in a few seconds it seemed like there was blood _everywhere_."

"Head wounds are usually like that," he said with a nod.

"Yeah, it was pretty bad," I agreed, remembering with a shudder. "She didn't faint or start screaming, but she started wailing - sort of a thin, keening sound. I got her to sit down with me and put her head in my lap so that I could press the skirt of my dress against the cut."

"I'm surprised you knew to do something like that at seven."

"I saw it on TV a few times and asked my mom, so I knew you were supposed to put pressure on cuts that were bleeding," I explained, and then hesitated about how to tell the next part of the story. I realized I'd skipped a couple important pieces of information. "I need to back up a little. I said before that all the other kids were playing tag, but that was really just all the _older_ kids. There were younger siblings all over the place, including the birthday-girl's little brother, who was probably about four. He was a little too small to play tag and had come to play in the sand underneath the playhouse. Of course when his cousin - or whatever - started making that wailing sound, he climbed up to see what was going on." I sighed, remembering his little face peeking up above the floor of the house. "All that blood - poor kid. He never would go in the playhouse after that."

"What did he do when he saw it?" Edward asked.

I let out a short, humorless laugh. "Started crying, of course. I yelled at him to go get his mom, which - let's be honest - he probably would have done anyway after seeing that."

"Seems like a reasonable reaction."

I shrugged and nodded. "It was over fairly quickly after that: the little girl was taken to the doctor, someone took me inside and cleaned me up as much as possible, someone else called Renee - "

"And that experience made you afraid of blood?" he asked.

"It didn't _make_ me afraid, exactly," I said, taking a breath. This was the part that was difficult to explain. "More like...revealed my fear."

His brow furrowed. "Revealed?"

I tried to put it into words. "It wasn't the trauma of watching a little girl my age hurt herself and bleed everywhere that forced me to understand I disliked blood so much. It was that, in a relatively enclosed space, warmed by the sun, I realized for the first time that blood has a distinctive smell. And the smell - just - " I shook my head, unable to explain. "My reaction to it is uncontrollable - primal, I suppose you might say. It freaks me out. The first thing I did after I was lifted down from the playhouse was bend over and throw up."

Edward was watching me skeptically. "An upset stomach after seeing someone get hurt - and having her bleed all over you - doesn't seem strange. Nor does associating blood with your fear."

"It wasn't an association between blood and seeing a girl who was a lot like me get hurt badly - or badly enough in the eyes of my seven-year-old self," I insisted. "Once the playhouse was cleaned up, I never had trouble going back in there again. My fear was never really about _her,_ or what happened, or where it happened, or that it might happen to me. I knew she was hurt and it made me nervous while I was waiting for help, but it wasn't _trauma_. It was just the blood - the smell of it. I simply can't stand the smell of blood."

He tried a different tactic: "I'm not sure humans can smell blood."

"Why not?" I asked. "You can smell copper, rust and the ocean, can't you? It smells like those things, but warm and mixed up together. Once I knew what it smelled like, I couldn't help noticing any time I was around wet blood, and it makes me sick."

He shifted uncomfortably and didn't reply.

"You don't have to believe me," I told him with a shrug. "Renee doesn't. It's true, though." I belatedly realized I was still holding half an orange and put it in my mouth.

"I don't disbelieve you," he sighed, messing up his hair with one hand. Messing it up _more_ , rather. He was lucky that he looked so damned good with messy hair - running his hands through it seemed to be a nervous gesture. It made me wonder what he was nervous about right now. Making me angry, perhaps?

I swallowed my bite. "You believe that I believe," I supplied for him, rolling my eyes.

A smile ghosted across his face. "That's also true," he said, and then repeated: "I don't disbelieve you. I...wish I could," he added, sounding as though the admission was being dragged from him.

"Why?" I wondered.

He just shook his head. "Mrs. Cope," he said, turning away from me. His voice, I noted, had suddenly gone dulcet and - caramelly.

The secretary glanced back at us. "Yes, Edward?" she asked, sounding a little breathless.

"I know it's a bit early, but I'm going to take Isobel to lunch if that's alright. She seems fine, but there's no sense in going back to class now."

Her smile was a little dazed, and behind her glasses I thought I saw her eyelashes _fluttering_. "Of course not. No sense at all."

I was very glad not to be on the receiving end of the smile he turned on her. Her chest stopped moving as her eyes went wide. I wanted to laugh, but I was uncomfortably aware that I probably looked exactly the same way when he turned that formidable charm on me. "Thank you, Mrs. Cope."

"Mm-hmm," she replied in a high, tight voice, apparently unable to form words any longer.

Edward got up and stepped across the narrow room to the bed, carefully taking the cold pack from me and placing it beside the sink. I swung my legs off the side of the bed and, remembering the last time I had tried to stand up from a bed unaided in Edward's presence, let him put his hand under my elbow. I hadn't quite decided what I thought of his display with Mrs. Cope. It was funny on one level and had gotten me released from both the office and the rest of gym, but it was also just plain unfair. I glanced up at him as we skirted the desk, heading for the office door. Everything about him was just plain unfair.

"You're annoyed at me," he said as the door closed behind us.

I wrapped his jacket - which I was still wearing - more tightly around me. It wasn't as warm as mine, but I liked that it smelled of him. I mean - I liked it in the sense that he smelled nice, not that I was attached to it being _his_ smell. And why was I even bothering to get defensive about something like that in my own mind?

I shook my head at him. While it wasn't true that I was annoyed, I was _something_. "I'm resentful," I decided.

His eyebrows went up at that. "Why?" he wondered.

"It's not fair that you get your way so easily," I grumbled. I was also afraid that, if he ever tried, he would get his way just as easily _with me_ , but I wasn't about to admit something like that out loud - which I also hated. There were lots of reasons I might not say something I was thinking: compassion, politeness, tact, surprise, knowing it was futile...the list went on. But I didn't think I usually avoided saying things out of _fear_. I didn't like knowing I was doing it now.

If anything, he looked even more surprised. "I'm trying to help you. Did you want to stay there?"

I shook my head again. "Of course not. It's still...not fair."

His brows drew together and I knew I had only confused him more.

I sighed and led the way toward the cafeteria, hoping he wouldn't push me to explain any further. This was so messy.


	24. Chapter 24

XXIV.

Alice breezed into the cafeteria, chattering with Jessica and June and carrying Isobel's coat over her arm. I had forgotten about it, but she evidently hadn't. It seemed, based on the smug direction of her thoughts, that Operation: Get Invited to the Movies was still on.

I glanced at Isobel, who had straightened a little at their arrival. I still didn't understand what she had told me outside, and she had been evasive when I tried to clarify. I was beginning to feel that my entire relationship with Isobel Swan progressed on a two steps forward, one step back basis. I had saved her from getting crushed by a car and held her in my arms - she had thanked me and then told me she wouldn't bother me, tried to pawn me off on her friend, and gone on a date with someone else. Actually - that was more like one step forward, three steps back. Then there had been several steps forward when she had gone to a play with Alice and agreed to meet Esme. So really we were progressing and regressing in uneven fits, and I never had any idea what was coming next with her. No wonder I was so confused.

My eyes fell to my hands and I felt a smile curving my mouth, remembering that, in spite of my confusion, I had held her today. She had rested her head against my chest. Even if she was annoyed - resentful - whatever - now, I wouldn't take back this morning for anything. Yes, we had argued - twice - but in between she had told me something personal - a story from her childhood. I thought I could listen to her tell me stories for days. She was engaging and funny - and, God, I loved her.

I looked up to find her watching me, a thoughtful look on her face. She raised her eyebrows, no doubt wondering about the smile, and I shrugged, knowing that I was probably grinning like an absolute fool - while she was upset with me no less. She would probably think I was laughing at her.

Then an answering smile tugged at one side of her mouth, and I knew exactly why I had fallen for this impossible human girl whose scent was enough to drive me wild, whose thoughts were utterly impenetrable, and whose actions never made a bit of sense to me. I felt a reckless need to touch her again rising inside of me. While I doubted that she would let me kiss her, I wondered if I might hold her hand...

Before I could move, Isobel's eyes left mine and I heard a chair scrape against the linoleum beside me. "Here you go," Alice said cheerfully, passing Isobel's coat across me and giving me a face full of her concentrated scent in the process. It was...potent. Damn.

"Thanks," Isobel told her.

A bowl of - something - something - orange? - flecked with the flesh of some animal was thrust across my field of vision as Isobel removed my jacket and donned her own. I tried not to recoil visibly from the stench of - whatever-it-was. Something like - that - following in the wake of Isobel's scent was _almost_ enough to quench the burning in my throat. I wondered if Alice had seen what I was about to do and disapproved enough to punish me for it. Maybe it was coincidence - she wasn't thinking anything disapproving at me - but she was decent at hiding her thoughts when she didn't want me seeing them. Most of the time.

Isobel tapped my shoulder and I gratefully turned my eyes to her. "Thanks for the jacket," she said.

"Sure," I rasped, taking it from her. In any case, Alice was no doubt right to potentially disapprove. Somehow I had momentarily forgotten how cold I was and how little Isobel liked the cold. She made me feel so…human. At least until something like her coat or a bowl of human food got shoved in my face and reminded me that I was a blood-sucking monster.

Alice nudged the bowl closer to Isobel. "I got you this. _Some_ of what the cafeteria makes isn't so bad, and I thought you might like it."

Isobel looked at the bowl and then at Alice. "You've eaten here?" she blurted.

I could hear Alice choosing her words carefully as Jessica and June joined us, pulling out chairs on the other side of Isobel and sitting down. "I get something from the cafeteria every once in a while." Sometimes she did buy something: water. Laughing at her carefully-crafted lie would have been counter productive, though, so I swallowed it.

"I really like macaroni and cheese, especially with bacon," Isobel confessed - which Alice, of course, had already figured out by flipping through the available futures. There were a finite number of items she could buy from the cafeteria. I should have checked with her before buying that tray of food on Tuesday. "Macaroni is pretty hard to mess up, too," Isobel added.

Alice smiled and didn't reply to her statement - probably smart since she hardly wanted to get into an extended conversation about food. "I'm glad you're feeling better," she chirped instead.

"We were all pretty worried," Jessica put in from the other side of the table.

"Worried about what?" Angela asked as she, Ashley and Mike arrived with their trays.

Alice waved at them while Ashley stared at us and Isobel hid her suddenly-red face in her hands.

"Isobel nearly passed out in gym today," I couldn't help snickering.

"What?!" Mike demanded, setting his tray a down next to Jessica's with a little more force than necessary and earning himself a glare from me.

"My fault," June volunteered, though she, too, was struggling not to laugh. "Apparently she gets faint at the sight of blood."

Isobel took the spoon Alice had brought with the macaroni and cheese and began eating it determinedly, her cheeks still flushed with embarrassment.

Jessica was somewhat annoyed by Mike's interest, but she laughed when she saw Isobel's reaction. "Luckily," she said, "Edward was there to carry her to the nurse." _I know I shouldn't get her hopes up, but if Mike thinks there's someone else..._

"Luckily," Isobel muttered darkly.

Mike raised his eyes to give me a dirty look. _Shit, of course she was saved by so-perfect Cullen. Fucking asshole._

I tried not to smirk at his thoughts and laid my arm casually across the back of Isobel's chair - not quite a declaration, but a little more than a friendly gesture. Mike looked away with a scowl, while Angela and Ashley pulled the details out of June and Jessica since Isobel showed no interest in talking about it.

Alice eyed me with amusement. _Look at you, getting all bold._ I decided to make several choice comments to her after school, nearly causing her to laugh outright when she caught that piece of the future. Luckily her audible snort was covered by laughter from Jessica and Ashley as June counted off some of the classic aspirational careers Isobel was disqualified from by her clumsiness and fear of blood - most notably astronaut and doctor. _Don't be mean to me or I won't help you see Isobel this weekend_ , Alice admonished me.

I raised one eyebrow at her - we both knew that was a lie.

 _Alright, alright, not my most convincing moment_ , she conceded. _Ask her to dinner with our family Saturday night._

I knew that she would say no, but we had to bring the topic up somehow, and in these kinds of cases I trusted Alice to know best.

Everyone else at the table was still teasing Isobel - other than Mike, who was occasionally trying indignantly, and incoherently, to defend her. I sat back and waited for a break in the conversation. My chance came when Angela confessed that she was so terrified of spiders that she _practically_ passed out when she saw one. "I'm about as useless as I would be if I were unconscious, at least," she said with a laugh.

I tapped Isobel on the shoulder as the rest of the table started discussing ways to dispose of spiders both humanely and decidedly inhumanely. She glanced up at me warily, prompting me to give her what I hoped was a reassuring smile. "My mom wanted me to ask you what you're doing this weekend," I said - not too loudly, but not too quietly, either. June, Jessica and Mike all took at least cursory notice.

"It depends on when you mean," she answered, some of the wariness leaving her expression at the mention of Esme. "Why?"

"She thought you might like to come to dinner Saturday night," I replied.

She was shaking her head regretfully before I had finished speaking, and both June and Jessica were definitely paying attention now. "I'm going to be in Port Angeles shopping," she tipped her head toward the side of the table that contained June, Jessica and Angela, "for the dance. I'll be gone pretty much all day Saturday."

"Ohhh, that sounds _fun_ ," Alice sighed on cue from my other side.

"Do you want to come?" Jessica asked, actually sounding eager. _Whatever you say about the Cullens, they dress like..._ she couldn't find an adjective sufficient to sum up her feelings. _And Alice is arguably the_ best _dressed. I mean, God, those_ boots _she's wearing, and those jeans look like they were_ made _for her._

I made a mental note to repeat Jessica's thoughts for Alice later since she would appreciate the compliments. She took great interest and pride in what she wore.

Alice was smiling regretfully. "I would love to so, so much, but we're actually camping Friday night, and I'm not sure exactly when we'll be back. Probably not until sometime late in the afternoon."

Jessica and Isobel both made faces, not understanding - at least in Jessica's case - what possible appeal sleeping outdoors could have. I couldn't say for certain the motives behind Isobel's expression. "That sucks," Jessica said, and June, Angela and Isobel - now all paying attention - nodded their agreement.

"What about the movie?" Isobel asked.

"Oh yeah," Jessica replied, brightening. "We're going to see a movie Saturday night. Do you want to come along?"

"Uh, _yes_ ," she answered, bouncing excitedly. _Protest_ , she ordered me. _Come up with something._

I avoided rolling my eyes with effort. A little more warning would have been nice. "You're ditching me and our _Lord of the Rings_ marathon?" I demanded, putting my irritation with Alice's sphinx-like methods into my tone.

"Watch it with someone else," she told me with a sniff. _Really, Edward?_ The Lord of the Rings _? They're watching a girly movie. You should have pretended to be interested in one of_ those.

What did she expect? _The Lord of the Rings_ was the only answer I could come up with on the spot that was remotely plausible but still held - I thought - significant appeal for women.

"With whom?" I returned, continuing the argument. "Emmett, the guy who becomes a human-shaped rubber ball after ten minutes of sitting still? Jasper, Mr. Wait Who Is Frodo Again, I Was Thinking About Something Else and Wasn't Watching? Or Rosalie, the wanna-be costume designer who feels the need to critique every non-armor piece of clothing that appears in any movie we ever try to watch with her?" These were all painfully accurate characterizations of our siblings when it came to movies. Alice, Carlisle, Esme and I had banished them from our movie-watching circle, though Alice sometimes sued for Jasper's admittance. His presence was reluctantly accepted if and only if Alice promised to explain the entire plot to him beforehand and try her best to foresee (and answer) the questions he was going to ask during.

Alice's face fell very convincingly. "I guess I did already make plans - " she began.

"Uh," Angela practically whispered, blushing furiously as her eyes darted to my face and then away again, "maybe Edward could come."

Isobel shot her such a grateful look that it warmed my chest. She wanted me to be there. "It's not as exciting as _The Lord of the Rings_ ," she warned me. "We're going to see the new version of _Les Miserables_. I don't know if you…" Her voice trailed off at the expression on my face. "What's wrong?"

I _was_ staring at her in shock, but the chance to see _Les Mis_ with Isobel - even in a group - was the opposite of wrong. "I would love to see _Les Miserables_. I already made plans to go on my own, but it will be better if - " If she was with me. "If I can see it with friends."

Alice sent a confused thought my way, trying to decide if I was telling the truth. She didn't know what _Les Mis_ meant to me - only Carlisle and Esme knew the whole story behind it.

I glanced around the table in time to catch the tail-end of a look between Isobel and Angela. Apparently in response to whatever had passed between them, Angela took a deep breath and asked me, "D-do you l-l-like musicals, Edward?"

 _Gay_ , Mike thought with a sneer.

I carefully kept my eyes on Angela. "I would say so, yes. I'm very passionate about music, so musical theatre isn't a stretch." I tried to make my smile gentle. Angela, I knew, was rather shy. In retrospect, it was somewhat surprising that she and my bold Isobel had taken to each other as well as they apparently had. "I would say that I'm selective about my musical theatre, though. Even Broadway sometimes produces pieces that are more worthy of being trashed than treasured. But when it's done right," I shook my head, "I'm not sure there's much that can compete a really excellent musical or opera for emotional impact."

" _Hot,"_ Jessica simultaneously thought and mouthed at June, and both girls giggled, elbowing each other.

I managed to suppress my eye-roll, but Isobel didn't bother - though she looked more amused than annoyed. "Does this mean we're having this conversation now?" she asked me.

It took a moment for me to realize what she was referring to. "The one about music?" I asked, and grinned as she nodded. "Looks like it."

"Edward plays the piano and guitar," Alice announced.

For the sake of verisimilitude, she left out the bass, mandolin, drums, violin, viola, cello, flute, clarinet, saxophone, French horn, trumpet and bassoon.

Isobel smiled and, keeping her eyes on me, leaned over to June and Jessica and whispered in tones that were perfectly audible to me, "Okay, that's pretty hot." Apparently Mike heard, too, because he stiffened. I couldn't keep the smirk off my face.

"What kind of music do you play?" June asked, giggling again and ducking her head when I turned my gaze on her.

"Mostly I take requests," I answered. "Alice sings and our father will sing backup if he's not too busy. Jasper can sometimes be coaxed into it, too. My mother likes it when I take my guitar out and play classical pieces while she works in the garden during the summer."

"That's sweet of you - I'll bet Esme appreciates it," Isobel said. "Do you sing?"

"I can carry a tune," I replied with a shrug, "but I prefer to play." Esme, Rosalie and Emmett were the only ones in the family who had never developed an ear. Emmett would sing - but only if it was karaoke, and he had a lot more enthusiasm than skill. More, I thought, because he was uninterested in acquiring it than because he was incapable. The same likely held true for Rosalie and Esme.

"Who's your favorite band?" Jessica urged, fascinated by the chance to find out something about me.

"I don't have one," I replied with a shrug.

"You don't _have_ one?" Isobel repeated incredulously.

I smiled at her. "Who's your favorite author?"

"Ah," she said with laugh, "I see your point." Jessica didn't, but decided not to interrupt. "Alright then - favorite genre?"

I ran my hand through my hair and then shrugged again. "I don't know. There's something well worth listening to in every genre."

"Decade?" she tried.

"Same problem," I told her. "Even when mainstream music is worthless, there's always something interesting happening _somewhere_. You just have to be willing to look for it."

Alice kicked me under the table. "They want to know some of what you like, idiot. Give them _something_." Everyone but Mike chuckled at her sisterly exasperation. What she meant was _give Isobel something_ , of course, and she meant a lot more than just my musical preferences, but I took her point.

" _Les Mis_ is my favorite musical," I offered.

"You should have said so!" Isobel told me, her sentiment echoed by nods from Angela and Jessica. "Why is it your favorite?"

It was a question I both did and didn't want to answer. As much as I wanted to share absolutely everything about me with her, I dreaded her response to my crimes - which were tied up inextricably in my reasons for loving _Les Mis_. Regardless of my conflicted feelings, though, there was no way to explain the full truth now, so I settled for a partial truth: "Jean Valjean."

She tilted her head, curious, but only said, "He's a good character. Better in the novel, but good in the musical."

The bell rang, causing Isobel to start and look around, blinking, apparently having forgotten that lunch wouldn't last forever. Her brow furrowed as she swept her eyes over our table and then scanned the rest of the room. "Where's Lauren?" she asked as though realizing for the first time that someone was missing.

I hoped that her inattention had something to do with me.

The question had hardly left her mouth before I felt a stomach-dropping surge of guilt from Jessica. She blew out a long breath and wrapped her arms around herself protectively. "Lauren is, uh, sitting with Tyler today," Jessica answered slowly. _Shit, I shouldn't have said anything to her. Or I should have asked first. I hope Isobel isn't pissed at me_ , she thought, cringing. "I, uh, I sort of told her a little bit about your date with him? I'm sorry - I just thought, you know, that she couldn't think _I_ was jealous, and after I thought about it, I didn't want her to being surprised with…anything."

Isobel looked surprised, but she reached around June to pat Jessica's arm comfortingly. "Don't be sorry. I'm glad you told her. I would have asked you to if it had occurred to me."

Jessica let out her breath in a relieved whoosh, and my opinion of her climbed half a notch. She might be self-centered, much too loud, and a terrible gossip, but she didn't want Lauren or Isobel to be hurt. "It didn't do any good, obviously," she said, rolling her eyes.

"You don't know that," Isobel countered. "At least she knows now. Even if she doesn't want to acknowledge anything, she might be more on guard."

"That's true," Jessica replied, brightening.

"Um, guys, we need to get to class," June reminded us.

"Right," Isobel agreed. I rose with her and took her trash.

"I've got it," I told her. "You go on."

"Oh," she said, glancing up at me in surprise, "you don't…" Her voice trailed off and her cheeks turned pink as she took in my expression.

"It's no trouble," I assured her, trying not to focus on her lips, which were parted slightly and begging to be kissed.

"Um. Thanks," she said, pulling her eyes from my face. "I'll...see you in Spanish."

We parted, with June and Isobel going one way, Jessica and Alice another, and Mike and Angela yet another. I headed toward the entrance nearest the parking lot, glad to skip both my biology class and the walk over, which would otherwise have been undertaken with Angela and Mike. Angela was dull but largely inoffensive; Mike was infuriating. His eyes and thoughts followed me out the door, speculating angrily on my relationship with Isobel.

I didn't know whether to be pleased or angered by his reaction. I was pleased that he thought he saw something between us, but, on the other hand, it was hardly any of his business.


	25. Chapter 25

XXV.

I saw Edward in Spanish, as promised, but there was no time to talk. Arranging coffee with Jess, almost fainting, and then spending lunch talking with everyone had pushed it from my mind for a little bit, but we had a test. I spent the few minutes before class hurriedly reviewing my notes once more, which was what pretty much everyone else was doing - other than Edward and Emmett, of course.

Both of them finished up the test fast, too, in less than twenty minutes. I glanced up at Edward and caught his eye as he went up to turn in his paper. He raised his eyebrows at me - which I chose to take as a taunt - and so I stuck my tongue out at him. I wondered why he was even taking the class if he was already fluent - it wasn't a required credit, just a helpful one if he wanted to avoid taking a foreign language in college, which I certainly did. But if he was fluent, he could do in two quarters or semesters in college what was taking him two entire years in high school. His way seemed really inefficient.

It took me a little more than twice as long as Edward and Emmett to finish my test - and about five minutes longer than Angela - but I was still done a solid ten minutes before the bell rang. All in all, the test wasn't _too_ bad. I was reasonably certain I'd done well.

Angela was nowhere to be seen when I emerged. A pity, but I could hardly blame her since it was our last class and she probably wanted to get home. Edward was waiting for me, though, leaning casually against the wall next to the door. Though his hair was dripping wet - and dripping all over him - he didn't seem to notice the rain. He grinned when he spotted me. I tried to be exasperated - he had seriously _just_ seen me - but I had a hard time not finding it cute.

"I don't have a lot of time," I warned him. "Jessica and I are going to grab coffee."

His face fell a little, but he nodded and reached inside his jacket to pull something out. "That's fine, this won't take - "

I put my hand on his to stop him, cutting off what he was about to say, and his eyes jumped to my face in shock - probably for good reason. If my hand felt as warm to him as his felt cold to me - well, it was a good thing that I knew he was normally this cold, or I would have been calling emergency services, convinced that waiting for me had landed him with a severe case of hypothermia. I probably felt, from his point of view, like I was about to drop dead from a fever.

He yanked his hand out from under mine. I wondered if he didn't want me touching him because of the secrets he was keeping - really freaking badly, I might add - or if there was some other reason. I hoped it was the former because contemplating the possibility that he might not like touching me sort of...hurt.

I let my arm fall. "You could join me and Simone until class lets out." Watching him drip was bothering me, so I reached out again slowly and, when he didn't stop me, flicked a lock of his hair that was steadily trickling water over his face. "I'll turn the heater on full and you might even manage to look a bit less like someone dumped you in a pond before I have to leave."

One side of his mouth pulled up in acknowledgment of my teasing, but something about the suggestion seemed to pain him. "We have less than ten minutes. I would be lucky if your Simone warmed up sufficiently to blow lukewarm air by the time you have to go."

Okay - well, that was actually true. I made a face at him anyway.

"I'll walk over with you, though," he said more quietly. "If you would like that."

"Sure," I replied, trying to sound casual even though I knew I was probably blushing.

"So," I said, taking a deep breath as we headed toward the parking lot, "what were you waiting to tell me that 'won't take' and I assume the last word of that sentence was going to be 'long'?"

He chuckled. "First I'm going to apologize for lunch today."

I glanced up at him in surprise and got a raindrop right in the eye for my trouble. Stupid rain. "Why are you apologizing?" I asked as I lowered my face again to better protect it. "Lunch was fun."

"I told you very little about my musical preferences," he pointed out. "I...didn't want to talk about it in a group that size."

Or with those people, I silently added for him, and snorted in amusement. At least he was trying to be diplomatic. "It's fine, I get it. I don't like talking favorite books in a big group, either - everyone has an opinion and someone's is inevitably just ignorant and then I have to work on being polite instead of actually getting into any kind of analysis - anyway, I get it."

"Thank you, but I promise you it's worse with music. It's generally accepted that literature requires some sort of training to analyze with any accuracy, but all bets are off with music." I risked a glance at him in time to see him roll his eyes. "Everyone's opinion is valid and everyone is an expert."

"Clearly you've never heard of reader response criticism," I told him, giving him the kind of smirk he so often gave me.

"Oh no," he returned, "I have. The key, however, is that no one _else_ has."

He had me there. I laughed.

We reached the parking lot and he put his hand under my arm as I stepped up slightly off the cement path and onto the pavement. I was tempted to roll my eyes at him - I wasn't going to trip - but, first, that would have required looking up with all the attendant hazard of rain in the eyes, and, second, I sort of liked his hand there.

Unfortunately he dropped his hand again as we made our way through the parking lot. "If the apology is first, what's second?" I asked.

He ran his hand through his soaked hair, looking embarrassed. "Second is I spent biology making you - a sort of playlist." Once again he reached into his jacket, and this time I didn't stop him as pulled out a neatly folded sheet of notebook paper. "I had to write it down."

I accepted it from him and unfolded it curiously, keeping it close to my body and hunching my shoulders to protect it from the rain. His handwriting was, of course, impeccable, and the first song on the list made me chuckle. " _Claire De Lune_ \- nice," I observed.

"Do you know Debussy?" Edward asked, sounding a bit surprised.

I re-folded the sheet of paper and put it in my own pocket - I didn't want it to get all wet before I had a chance to put together my "essential Edward" playlist - and nodded in response to his question. "My mom is a big fan of Wagner and Debussy. I love _Claire De Lune_ in spite of the fact that I can't stand most of that pretentious avant-garde crap."

He stopped walking abruptly. When I looked up at him, he was watching me through narrowed eyes. "Did you really just call Wagner and Debussy 'pretentious avant-garde crap'?"

I grinned at his ire. "Yep. I'll take Mozart and Beethoven over those two _any_ day."

"There's no denying that Mozart and Beethoven were brilliant artists, but you're completely devaluing Wagner's development of the _leitmotif_ and the way Debussy plays with dissonance - "

"Edward," I interrupted, my hands on my hips, "I've seen _Tristan und Isolde_ and _Pelleas et Melisande_. Multiple times. My mother drags me to see them _every time_ the opera in Phoenix puts one of them on. They are both essentially hours - _four_ hours in the case of _Tristan und Isolde_ \- of recitative. There is no coherent melody, no rhythm - just some words sung to what might as well be a random collection of notes."

He was shaking his head before I got halfway through my protest. "Those operas bear _very_ little resemblance to each other. I can't believe - especially after watching them both several times - that you can't hear the differences. And I will point out that, in Debussy's case, he was deliberately _trying_ to take the focus off of the singing. You're supposed to be paying attention to the orchestration."

I rolled my eyes at him. "Well, you know, some of us like our music to actually have a melody. Anything else starts to sound suspiciously like a bunch of noise."

He let out a sigh, but he looked amused. "I can see that we aren't going to resolve this disagreement easily," he said, some humor creeping into his tone. "I think I need a new tactic." Abruptly he poked at my ribs, causing me to squeak and flinch away involuntarily. He chuckled. "Aha, I think I've found my new rhetorical strategy."

"Oh no," I said, backing away slowly. "Tickling is _not_ rhetoric."

His arm shot out, catching me around the waist. "What, you've never heard of embodied rhetoric?" he teased me, drawing me closer in spite of my struggles to get free.

I hadn't, but, whatever it was, I highly doubted this counted as anything other than intimidation. "If you go through with this, you are ceding the moral high ground," I told him helplessly. "I just want that to be clear."

"I think I can live without the high ground as long as I get the _winning_ ground." He pressed me to his chest and gave me a wicked smile. "So, Isobel, are we going to do this the easy way or the hard way?"

I raised my chin. "Your threats of torture don't scare me."

He didn't give me a chance to say anything more. I shrieked with laughter as he began poking my ribs, the hood of my coat falling back in the process. Normally I would have been worried about my hair getting damp and frizzy, but I couldn't quite seem to find the attention for it now. Every bit of my concentration was focused on getting free. As desperately as I tried to squirm away from the onslaught, though, his arm kept me pinned in place like an iron band across my back. He was _really_ strong.

It only took about ten seconds for my resolve to begin crumbling. "Stop!" I gasped. "Okay! Stop!"

He mercifully paused. "You have something to say?" he asked archly.

"Yes," I panted. "I...was wrong. I mean...everyone knows...rhythm _and_ melody in the same...piece of music is just so... _déclassé_."

His fingers dug into my side again. "Sarcasm is not helping your case, Isobel."

"Okay!" I howled, and he once again paused. "I'm sorry," I gasped.

"For?" he prompted, his breath tickling my ear in a much more pleasant way than his fingers had just been doing to my ribs.

A thrill shot through my stomach and I made the mistake of looking up at him, suddenly hyper-aware of our bodies pressed together. Our faces were only a few inches apart. "Um," I whispered, completely losing whatever I had been thinking about. Something about music? Whatever, there was no way it was as important as Edward's arm around my waist or his hand resting on my hip.

His golden eyes widened slightly as our position apparently occurred to _him_ for the first time as well. Oh God, I thought, he's going to kiss me. And if for some reason he doesn't, _I'm_ going to kiss _him_. I put my hand carefully on his chest, wondering if his lips would be as cold as his hands and if I would actually like that…

Then the bell rang for the end of school, shattering the moment. Edward's eyes went even wider with something like horror and he released me as though burned, stepping back quickly.

Damn it. "Wait," I squeaked, grabbing his arm. My body was still humming with unresolved electricity and I discovered that I really wanted that kiss.

He didn't shake my hand from his arm, but his other hand was in his hair again, "I'm sorry," he muttered. "I didn't mean to-"

"Why not?" I cut him off.

His glance was surprised. "Why not what?" he asked.

"Why didn't you mean to?" I let go of his arm, suddenly embarrassed, and wrapped my arms around myself. I still felt all...tingly and strange, and oddly vulnerable on top of it. If he truly didn't want to touch me, I truly would be hurt now, and all my previous certainty about his feelings towards me seemed laughable. It was really weird and I really didn't like it and what the hell was I doing anyway?

He reached out and pulled my hood back up carefully, his fingers showing the inclination to linger on my hair. He retracted his hand, though, as doors somewhere behind me opened and students began pouring out of the school. A pained expression twisted his features. "You know that reality I'm not telling you about?" he asked me, his voice low and hurried.

The reality that lay somewhere behind my jokes. The one I had been careful not to seek - had, perhaps, even been avoiding. I nodded.

"Before you make any decisions about me, you need to know about it."

That wasn't the answer I had been expecting, and, based on his serious expression, I didn't think it was likely to be a good thing. I swallowed and tried to think of something to say, but was spared the necessity by Jessica calling out my name.

Coffee. Right.

Edward and I held each other's eyes for another moment, but he looked so miserable that I had to drop mine. I focused on his mouth instead. A very nice mouth. Cold or not, I really did want to try kissing it.

"I'll see you tomorrow?" I asked his very nice and very kissable-looking mouth.

He gave a sharp nod and turned away.

Jessica caught my arm before he had taken more than three steps. "See you tomorrow, Edward!" she called out at his retreating back. He raised a hand in acknowledgment without turning around. "Jeez, he could have waited a second and said hi," she muttered, turning her attention to me. "Are you okay?" she asked as her eyes fastened on my face. "You seem a little…" She shook her head, unable or unwilling to describe how I seemed.

I wondered what the appropriate descriptor would be. Enthralled? Terrified? Turned on? Maybe just baffled.

I let out a long breath. "You love being on speaking terms with him, don't you," I said to Jessica, arching one eyebrow and indicating Edward with a jerk of my head.

She giggled. "Well, duh. Lauren is so pissed that she missed sitting with him at lunch today that she's refusing to talk to me."

"Oh good," I said with hopefully-not-too-forced brightness, "maybe she won't be talking to me, either."

"Catty," Jessica snickered. For once I didn't even care if she went and repeated what I'd said to Lauren - I wasn't very good at pretending things, and pretending to be, at worst, indifferent to Lauren was testing my acting ability in a way that I found exhausting. I didn't want to be rude or anything, but if we could just mutually ignore each other, that would make me very happy.

"So," I began, ready to get down to business, "should we both drive or what?"

"Yeah, I don't really want to come back here, so let's just both drive."

"Alright," I agreed with a shrug.

We retreated to our respective cars and I followed Jessica out the gate and to the coffee shop, focusing determinedly on the road the whole way and ignoring the lingering buzz of electricity in my stomach. Given the choice, I would have waited to settle my feelings more before getting out on the road, but the necessity would have been difficult to explain.

Once we arrived, we got in line, ordered and I paid. My tea took a lot less time than Jessica's latte, so I grabbed a little table and waited for her, still feeling slightly dizzy - on top of my Edward-induced emotional instability, I really didn't know how to say what I wanted to say to her and was finding it difficult to focus.

I was reflecting somewhat dreamily on Edward's golden eyes when Jess joined me, jolting me back to reality. "I am _so_ excited about this weekend," she told me without preamble. "I can't believe I've never talked to Alice before. She's really great, isn't she? I wish she could come with us to shop."

Alice. Well, maybe that would lead into Edward. Somehow. "Yeah, she is pretty great, and I wish she could come, too. Did you know - she designs clothing for herself and Rosalie."

"That is _so cool_ ," Jess replied. "I guess it's not surprising, though. She always looks amazing, and clothing for those of us who are vertically challenged is not always easy to find. Especially _good_ clothing."

I imagined that was probably true, though I hadn't considered it. I wondered if it was one of the things that had first drawn Alice to clothing design. It would make sense since she'd said she didn't want to pursue it professionally. "Thanks for being cool about Edward coming to the movie," I said, seeing a chance to shift the conversation. "I know it was supposed to be a girls' outing."

She looked at me like I was crazy. "Like _anyone_ would pass up a chance to see a movie with Edward freaking Cullen." Her eyes fluttered closed and a blissful expression settled over her features. "I'm totally going to pretend we're there on a date together."

I snorted, torn between irritation and amusement. "What if you're not sitting next to him?" I wondered. I strongly suspected that Edward would try to manage things so that he ended up sitting next to me, and I wouldn't put it past him to either position himself at the end of our group or get Alice on the other side of him.

"Even better," Jessica said, opening her eyes again and flashing me a grin. "I can lay my head on the shoulder of whoever I _am_ next to, and cuddle up to her while pretending that _she's_ Edward."

I burst out laughing at that. "I am definitely not sitting next to you," I told her. "I don't want _you_ groping me any more than I wanted Tyler to."

"Liar," she snickered. "You're the one who asked me out to coffee, remember?"

It was, I decided, in my best interests not to pursue that. We were getting off topic. "I thought you liked Mike, though," I said.

"I do," she affirmed, "but that doesn't mean I don't have _eyes_ , you know? Edward is like…" she paused, looking for an analogy, "a celebrity crush. Just because you _know_ nothing is going to happen doesn't mean you can't enjoy looking and thinking about it."

"Okay," I agreed, knowing it was probably true even though I'd never really had a celebrity crush - unless guys from books counted. I'd had sort of a thing for pre-insect Gregor Samsa from the age of thirteen, which was when I first read _The Metamorphosis_ , until about fifteen, at which point I'd read a critical analysis of Kafka's relationship to his main character. It made me realize what a massive pushover Gregor was, and I started finding him tragic in a pathetic way instead of an appealing one. More recently I'd taken a liking to Halbarad from _The Lord of the Rings_ , but he appeared too briefly in the books for me to have anything as coherent as a _crush_ on him.

I dragged my mind back to my conversation with Jess. This might be the best opening I was going to get. "What if, though, one of your friends had, uh, a real shot with your celebrity crush?"

She blinked. "With my - ?" Her eyes went wide. "Wait, you mean...with Edward? You?" She leaned forward in sudden excitement, her face breaking out in the most enormous grin I'd ever seen. "Oh my God, what happened?!"

"Nothing...big," I said carefully. "Just a lot of little things."

"Like _what_?" she demanded.

I took a deep breath. "Well, Alice keeps shoving me at him like...I don't know. Like she believes in soulmates and thinks we're it or something. I'm not sure. It's weird. She wanted me to ask him to the dance and told me that I should _right in front_ of him."

"What did he say?" Jessica breathed.

"I don't remember exactly, but he was basically trying to get her not to pressure me into it - he definitely wasn't saying he didn't want me to."

She squeaked and her hands flew to her mouth. "What else?" she asked.

"He introduced me to his mother."

"Oh my God, he totally carried you to the nurse today!"

"Yeah," I sighed, "that, too."

"So obviously you like him," Jessica said as though there was no possible question.

"I think so," I replied. I was getting more and more certain, but - there was whatever he hadn't told me, and, I didn't know, maybe I was just physically attracted to him. I _was_ really physically attracted to him.

"You _think_ so?" she repeated, incredulous.

"Well, I don't know much about," I waved my hand vaguely, "this stuff. I'm trying to figure it out."

She just stared at me, apparently rendered speechless.

"Anyway, before I really act on anything, I wanted to make sure it wouldn't, I don't know, bother you, I guess? I know...you liked him."

"Wow," she whispered sitting back in her seat. "You are way nicer than I would be if _I_ were the one who had Edward freaking Cullen's attention. I would not give a _shit_ what anyone else thought."

"I don't want a repeat of the Lauren thing," I admitted, "both in principle and with _you_ , specifically, because you've been a good friend to me from the very first."

She smiled. "No, we're completely good. I mean," she laughed, " _someone_ should be with Edward, right? Otherwise, what a freaking waste. I think _that_ bothers me more than seeing someone else date him. But I absolutely expect details!"

" _Tasteful_ details," I promised, making her laugh again. "Provided things get that far. I'm still trying to figure it out - and I think maybe he is, too."

"What's to figure out?" she asked, shrugging.

I didn't really know how to answer that, especially for Edward, so I just shrugged in return. "Things?"

Jessica let it go. "I'm calling Lauren tonight and rubbing this in her _face_. Unless you want to do it."

I rolled my eyes. "Please, be my guest."

"Well, you'd better figure out your _things_ fast, because there's no way I can just _not talk_ about this. Does anyone else know?"

"Not really," I sighed, knowing that pretty much everyone would by the end of school tomorrow.

After this afternoon, I was a little less certain where the stuff between me and Edward was going. As if his changes in behavior weren't confusing enough, I was giving _myself_ emotional whiplash with my vacillation between frightened and fascinated. But I was willing to figure our _things_ out - I wasn't certain I had much choice about my willingness at this point. Hopefully his attitude was similar since our business was going to be under roughly a hundred different microscopes very soon.

* * *

Note: I've got an "Edward's essential playlist" all made up, but I'll wait to post it (and defend it) when Isobel actually starts looking it over. I more or less agree with Isobel regarding Wagner, Debussy and their respective operas with a couple of caveats: 1) the rhythms are all wrong to call the songs "recitatives" (though melodically they do remind me of those) and 2) the two operas really do feel very different. _Tristan und Isolde_ is all "I feel things! Let me tell you about all the things I feel! And then I have some plans...let me tell you how I feel about them!" _Pelleas et Melisande_ is more disconnected, like the feelings just sort of happen. It's a lot like a dream - you know, one of those weird ones where someone eating a peanut butter sandwich is suddenly the sexiest thing in the world or your parakeet's favorite bell becomes a terrifying omen of death. The only really consistent thread through the whole thing is how turned on everyone is by Melisande's super long hair. (Kinky, right?)


	26. Chapter 26

Note: Short chapter, mostly just to fill in Edward's feelings about the Debussy/Wagner argument. Gave me the chance to expand on Alice a little more, too.

* * *

XXVI.

I rested my forehead on my drawn-up legs. Carlisle wasn't home yet, but his office smelled like him. It was...comforting.

"Edward…" Alice sighed from the door.

"What was I _thinking_?" I asked miserably. "I might have _killed_ her." The entire scene in the parking lot kept replaying over and over again in my mind, with everything that might have gone wrong highlighted for me in vivid detail. I could still feel the heat from Isobel's body against the arm I had pressed to her back to hold her in place. I had been gentle, but had I forgotten myself - even for a moment - I might have snapped her spine. The tips of my fingers, which had caused her to squeal and writhe with laughter, might have broken her ribs. And then, worst of all, I had very nearly kissed her. I had very nearly placed my teeth in dangerous proximity to the so-delicate veil of her skin, beneath which beat the blood that I -

The blood that I still _craved_.

Why had I done it - any of it? I knew better. I _knew_. What was it that had made me forget?

I remembered Isobel, standing with her hands on her hips, trashing two brilliant composers. I had been thinking - that she liked to argue. That I would never convince her using words. I had been dazzled by her impudent playfulness. Fearless. Bold. Trusting implicitly that I would never hurt her.

How little I deserved that trust, especially after today. How _easily_ I might have destroyed her forever.

"You _wouldn't_ have," Alice replied to my lament, her tone emphatic.

I looked up in surprise, trying to see what she had seen. Was my control that much better than it had been? "You were watching?"

Her eyes shifted away from mine. "No," she admitted. "But - "

I didn't wait to hear it, lowering my head back to my knees. If she hadn't been watching, she didn't _know_ anything.

"Edward!" she trilled, frustrated. Abruptly she was right before me, leaning on Carlisle's desk.

I refused to look up.

"You wouldn't hurt her, Edward," she insisted. "You _won't_. You love her."

A bitter laugh rose up in my throat, choking me. "If you believe that," I taunted her, "why are you avoiding my future?" She was - her mind was fully on me, entirely ignoring the kaleidoscope of possibilities she had access to.

"Because my visions are dependent on your _choices_ ," she responded. "I know you'll make the right ones with regard to Isobel. I don't need to see the future to know that."

She was so confident. I wished that I could be. Isobel was so breakable, and I - I was such a fool. "I have to tell her," I whispered. "Before this goes any further - she has to know." Alice was getting what she wanted: without any real intention of doing so, I had somehow engaged Isobel's affection - at least to some degree. But we couldn't go on like this without her knowing exactly what it was she was attaching herself to.

Not another person. A monster.

"Hm, well…" Alice said, flipping rapidly through possible futures - and pointedly ignoring those in which Isobel still ended up dead. "Telling her isn't such a bad idea," she admitted.

An understatement - according to what Alice saw, if I didn't tell Isobel about myself soon, she would not take it well when she found out.

"Give her one thing at a time slowly over the next week or week and a half," Alice advised as I tried out, in my mind, different ways I might tell her about us - about me - in order to see how it changed Alice's visions. "If she has time to process each piece of information separately, she'll be less overwhelmed."

I shouldn't manipulate her reactions like that - but I could see that even if I admitted exactly what I was doing to her, she wouldn't be upset over it. Her preference for not being emotionally overpowered was greater than any resentment she might feel over my conscious attempt to get the best reaction possible from her. I felt my lips turning upward as I caught one possible future in which she thanked me for being considerate. That was an interesting way to look at it. Was it manipulation or consideration? Since Isobel was the one I was either manipulating or being considerate toward, I supposed I might as well allow her to shape my perception of my actions.

I sighed and unbent myself, putting my feet down on the floor and rubbing my forehead with one hand. "This is so wrong," I groaned.

"Well," Alice piped, "you could always turn her and then none of this would be a problem."

I shot her a glare. "I'm not going to do that, Alice."

"Just _say_ ing," she replied with a roll of her eyes, taunting me.

Emmett's footsteps were briefly audible on the stairs, and then he appeared at the door to the office. "Is emo-Edward done crying over unspilled blood? Because we've got better shit to do tonight."

I shot him a glare. As though finding a road for a race held even a fraction of the importance that decisions regarding Isobel did.

"I could just tell you which road you'll pick," Alice offered.

"No!" Emmett snapped, shaking his finger at her. "You keep your mouth shut, pixie girl. We're going out and picking _properly_."

His mental image of _how_ we would choose caused me to snort with laughter. Jasper had volunteered his Audi to test potential roads. He and Emmett wanted me along to help choose, and Rosalie and Esme had both voiced an interest, as well. We would be crammed in, but I could see why Emmett was excited.

Alice made a face. "Fiiiine, _leave_ me home alone with Carlisle." That, I was certain, was meant for Jasper, who was downstairs but could undoubtedly hear us.

"You haven't given him a deep-sea fish anatomy lesson in a while," I told her. "And didn't they just find some new kinds of bacteria almost a mile into the oceanic crust?"

"Three-quarters of a mile," she corrected, being unnecessarily precise mostly to annoy me, "but yes - that's true. We could read up on that together." Carlisle, Rosalie and I all had more knowledge of _human_ biology since we had all gone to medical school, but Alice's interest was far wider-ranging. She actually had a decent collection of deep-sea curiosities, some still unknown to human science, collected for her by myself and Carlisle a few years ago. Alice would have gone with us, but she had a touch of claustrophobia, apparently brought with her into undeath and never quite overcome. The darkness and press of water proved too much for her when she gave very deep sea diving a try.

Carlisle and I had made it down close to ten thousand feet below the surface during our own dives, and were able to stay put for long periods of time. Days, even. Vampires were, of course, much better suited to extremes of pressure than humans. Unfortunately, buoyancy was still a problem we had to contend with. Achieving neutral buoyancy was practically a necessity if we intended to do any thorough exploration of local wildlife. Our reflexes were good, but having to constantly fight against rising - or, less commonly, sinking - was still enough to throw things off a little, especially when we were trying to approach very wary fish and molluscs or hold still enough to convince them to approach us. The commercially available gear for adjusting buoyancy was meant for the shallower depths commonly achieved by scuba divers. Other, non-commercial gear was meant to be integrated into submarines. Rosalie had come up with a few solutions, but it wasn't as though we had a factory or clean room available to churn out anything really sophisticated

Maybe once 3D printing became more versatile.

In any case, Carlisle and I had managed to find and catch a few odd animals for Alice to dissect, diagram and then preserve. She had named them - not in the scientific sense, but rather in the "I call this cutie Spike because of her dagger-like teeth" sense - and attempted to keep them in her room where she could admire and coo at them on a daily basis. That had lasted until Jasper put his foot down. He couldn't, he had claimed, concentrate on anything - especially their love life - with more than a dozen pairs of cold, dead eyes set in a series of grotesque faces watching his every move.

Emmett had laughed at his cowardice for days - until Jasper had suggested that Alice might use _his_ room to store her collection. That shut Emmett up. Fast. Now the collection resided on shelves in the little lab Esme had attached to our workshop.

Alice still didn't understand why anyone would find her "precious little fishies" "creepy" or "disgusting."

Carlisle wouldn't mind discussing her fish, though. His personal interests were wide-ranging and he had an exquisite understanding of how interrelated the world could be. He and Alice had set up a separate investment account that would hopefully, in another decade or so, offer up enough funds to buy or build a fully-outfitted lab somewhere remote. By that time 3D printing would probably be able to do much more varied work, and so a clean room attached to the lab would give Rosalie and Esme somewhere to design and manufacture better gear for buoyancy control. Alice - perhaps with the help of a few locals working as lab assistants - could start doing a _real_ investigation of whatever we managed to find for her, including thorough chemical analyses. Carlisle hoped that the venture would lead to some pharmaceutical applications. If we - or a shell corporation we owned - held the patents, Carlisle could see them sold at-cost.

That was long-term, though. In the meantime, Alice kept up on the latest research and discoveries, and Carlisle wouldn't object to an evening spent getting updates from her.

Emmett cleared his throat, cutting off Alice before she could begin enthusing over the fact that the newly-discovered microbes were apparently unrelated to the bacteria that made their living in the basalt just a few hundred feet higher. "Anyone have eyes on Esme yet?" he asked at a just-slightly-louder-than-conversational volume.

The question was for Jasper and Rose, but I answered before either of them could: "I hear her thoughts returning. She'll be here in a moment." She had apparently just finished hunting. "Carlisle isn't far from home, either," I added as an aside to Alice.

"Come on," Emmett urged, his face breaking into a boyish grin. "This is going to be _so awesome_."


	27. Chapter 27

Note: Edward's playlist is at the bottom if you want to scroll down and look at it first. A few justifications before you go look, though: I limited myself to ten songs per time period because I figured that you could fit 50 songs on a sheet of notebook paper if you put them into columns, but really not many more than that. So _a lot_ is missing. I realize that. I also admit that my personal preferences had to play a part in making this up, but I also did extensive research, looking for artists whom music experts now see as pivotal - both domestically and internationally, when data was easily available in English for the latter (which it wasn't always).

A warning: there's a bit of discussion about purity culture this chapter. If you really buy into that, I have no idea why you're here reading an M-rated _Twilight_ fanfic - I mean, have you seen my characters swearing? - but you might be (even more?) offended. If you've _escaped_ from that, well, possible trigger warning? I guess? The conversation isn't super in-depth.

* * *

XXVII.

I pulled out Edward's playlist as I waited to see if Ophelia felt like booting up this evening. Charlie and I were just having leftovers tonight, so there was nothing I particularly needed to do - I had a busy-work sheet for government, but I could probably do it in the morning before school.

The entire notebook page that Edward had given me was covered in neat columns of songs and their artists, sometimes with an additional note with things like the specific album Edward recommended. It was really more like five playlists than one, because it was also broken up into sections - classical came first, then 1900 through 1939, 1940 through 1969, 1979 through 1999, and the 21st century. Each heading had ten songs under it. Edward had left me an additional note at the top of the page: "I thought about dividing by genres, but those are more fluid than dates. Besides, genres evolve significantly over time."

I wasn't going to quibble with the way he chose to organize his playlist.

Ophelia decided to offer me the Windows sign-in page, so I entered my password and left her to finish loading the OS as I turned my eyes back to the paper in my hand. As I had already seen, Claude Debussy's _Claire De Lune_ headed the classical section. It was followed by selections from Mozart, someone named Maurice Ravel, Beethoven, Liszt, Chopin, Bach with someone named Charles Gounod, a piece just from Bach, one from Tchaikovsky - specifically the waltz from _Swan Lake_ , which I _loved_ \- and finally something from Richard Strauss. No Wagner anywhere, I noted with relief. Also lots of piano pieces, which I supposed made sense if Edward played the piano.

Some of the songs from the time periods that followed tended to stay within a single genre or small subset of genres. 1900 through 1939, for instance, was mostly blues with a few things that might be considered jazz. There was also one that was only available from the Library of Congress archive - as I found when I looked it up online. It was a sung Puerto Rican migrant worker in 1939. She called the song _Bolero Sentimental_. Her voice was untrained but sweet and I found myself wondering about her - how old was she when she sang for the anthropologist who recorded her? Did she make it through the rest of The Great Depression? Was she still alive? It wasn't very likely, I supposed.

I downloaded the song to listen to again later.

Under other periods, Edward had a greater diversity of music - different genres coming from places across the globe. I saw what Alice meant when she said his knowledge was encyclopedic. Many of the songs he had chosen were well-known or iconic, but others seemed like they were probably incredibly obscure - like the one from the migrant worker. I'd heard of exactly four of the artists in his 21st century group.

I was really excited to listen to everything, even if he and I did disagree about "pretentious avant-garde crap."

I was singing along - probably badly - with _Suffragette City_ as I heated up dinner when Charlie got home. He gave me a strange look but didn't object to sharing our dinner with David Bowie, Queen, The Cars, Suzanne Vega, Bruce Springsteen, Pink Floyd and Pat Benatar. They were all featured in Edward's 1970 through 1999 section. I even caught Charlie humming along absently to Pat Benatar's _Hit Me With Your Best Shot_ , which sent me into a fit of giggles. It also let me know precisely whom I had inherited my complete lack of musical talent from.

I was somewhat tearfully belting out Ed Sheeran's _The A Team_ while washing dishes after dinner when my phone interrupted me.

I turned off the water, wiped my eyes, and paused the music before picking up. It was Angela. "Hey," I said. "What's going on?" It was nice that she had called - I wanted to tell her about Edward's playlist and Jessica's reaction to my possible relationship with him, though I hadn't decided yet about the argument in the parking lot or the kiss it had almost led to.

"Hey," she replied, her voice uncharacteristically breathy, almost like she was - crying?

"What's wrong?" I asked immediately, all thoughts of my afternoon gone.

"Um," she said, not immediately answering the question. "Could I...maybe come over?"

"Yeah, of course," I responded immediately. "Do you need me to come get you?" I didn't think Angela had her own car.

"Would you?" she asked, sounding so grateful it broke my heart a little.

"Of course. I'll be right over," I promised.

"Thanks, see you in a few minutes," she said, relief in her voice.

We hung up and I flew upstairs to get my purse out of my backpack.

Charlie was watching me with raised eyebrows when I came back down. "Angela is upset about something," I explained as I pulled on my shoes. "I'm going to pick her up and then we might come back here - but if she hasn't eaten yet I might drag her out somewhere. I can call and let you know, if you want."

"It's fine," he replied, waving away my concern. "If you want her to spend the night, though, give me some warning about _that_."

I chuckled. "I doubt that will happen - it's a school night and Angela is pretty responsible. But if she wants to, I will definitely call first."

He smiled at me. "Okay, Bells. Have a good time with your friend."

I nodded and hurried out the door, tripping over the threshold but managing to catch myself before I fell down the two stairs that led down from the little porch. That was good-a sprained ankle would not have gotten me to Angela any faster. Charlie's chuckle at my incurable clumsiness followed me outside.

Six minutes later, I pulled up at the curb beside Angela's house and texted her. She came out quietly, shutting the door softly behind her. I wondered if she was _sneaking_ out. If so, she wasn't doing a very good job - the roar of Simone's engine was hardly subtle.

She didn't seem to be crying as she got into my truck, but it was too dark for me to look for evidence that she might have been earlier. "Have you eaten?" I asked her, feeling like pleasantries were probably superfluous and unwanted.

"Yeah," she replied, but then stopped. "I mean, we had dinner. I guess I didn't eat that much."

"Let's go to the diner," I suggested. Thanks to my long association with Charlie, I knew he ate there a lot when he had to work late and that it was open until midnight. Angela and I might want to talk late, and the walls at my house were pretty thin. I didn't want to disturb Charlie. Since Angela and I were both in-bed-by-ten people - Angela even more so than I was - midnight was probably late enough for us.

"I'm not really hungry and I didn't bring my purse," she protested.

"First," I argued, "I'll bet you whatever you'd care to wager that you could drink a milkshake or eat a slice of pie, and I'll happily buy you that. Second, if you end up getting hungry, you can just owe me a meal. I'm sure we'll go out somewhere again."

"You're pushy," she told me, but I could see her smiling. "It's in a good way, though. You're right - ice cream would make this a lot better."

I started my truck and pulled away from the curb. "If it's ice cream, it must be about a boy," I guessed.

"Yes," she sighed, "but not at all in the way you're thinking. I'll tell you about it when I have a milkshake in front of me."

That was fair. We fell silent and didn't speak again until I pulled into the diner's parking lot. It wasn't awkward, though - Angela was clearly lost in thought.

"Are you going to want to spend the night?" I asked as I turned off my truck after parking. It had occurred to me that giving Charlie _significant_ warning would probably be preferable.

Angel looked surprised. "With you? No, that's fine. It's not like I got kicked out or something."

"I didn't think _that_ ," I assured her.

We went in and were seated immediately - in a booth tucked into a corner when I requested it. It was too late for there to be a crowd, and, though we might not get the best service way over in the corner, it would be private. Angela ordered a peanut butter and chocolate milkshake, and I got a slice of hazelnut and apple pie a la mode, and asked for a big order of fries for us to share. I thought that snacking might give us something to focus on if the conversation got awkward.

It was an easy order for the kitchen, so we got our food about five minutes later. I took Angela's statement that she would talk when she had a milkshake in front of her literally, and spent the wait telling her about my search for sparkling water to christen Simone and the short ceremony I'd subjected Charlie to. The story made her smile, which was what I had been hoping for.

The waitress gave us our food and we thanked her - Angela by name. Forks was a small town, after all. I only didn't know everyone by virtue of the fact that I had spent so little time here. Angela took a long drink of her shake, closing her eyes in pleasure.

"Better?" I asked.

"Yes," she agreed. "I'm not sure where to start, though."

"Why don't you give me the outline form, and I'll ask for more details where it seems to need expansion," I suggested.

She laughed. "Alright, that sounds very neat and organized. I approve."

I gave her a little smirk. "Of course you do."

We both sobered as she let out a breath. "I suppose there are two essential pieces of information to start with. The first is that I'm going to the dance with Brian Mosse - you know, Mike's buddy."

I nodded, having heard as much from Jessica.

"The second - and you probably know this, but I'm repeating it because you _are_ new in town - is that my father is pastor of the Lutheran church."

That was _not_ a piece of information I had previously acquired. "Huh," I grunted as it integrated itself into what I knew of Angela. "I guess that makes sense."

My expression made her chuckle.

"So...he doesn't want you going to the dance?" I guessed, fitting the pieces into a picture that made some sense. "Or, at least, he doesn't want you taking a date?"

"Close," she replied. "It's actually my mom." Her eyes dropped to the table and she reached out to take a french fry from the basket I had positioned between us. "She grew up in a different church. A...more conservative church. One that...believes in _courting_ instead of _dating_."

"Courting?" I repeated in confusion. "Like...what Victorians did?"

"Pretty much," Angela said.

"Did she convert from _Puritanism_?" I asked.

Angela gave a surprised and fairly undignified snort of laughter, and her hand flew to her mouth. "She might as well have," she croaked before lowering her head to her arms on the table while shaking with what I hoped was laughter and not tears.

"Are you okay?"

"Yes," she choked. After another moment she raised her face so that I could see the grin that was spread across it. "I just _really_ needed to hear that. Thank you." She wiped her eyes, which I assumed had teared up from laughing.

"You're welcome," I told her with a shrug. "I'm not sure what your mom being a former Puritan has to do with your dad being a pastor, though. Shouldn't that have been the basic piece of information that I needed?"

"Oh, you guessed close and so I didn't completely explain. So...hmm...my mom converted to being a Lutheran after she met and fell in love with my dad." She smiled. "He always says that it's the best part of being a pastor - he got to choose any girl he wanted to marry, and then just worked to convert her to his denomination."

That was weird but kind of cute, so I smiled back and nodded, encouraging her to go on.

"Well, my mom converted, you know, _doctrinally_ , but it's harder to give up the _cultural_ parts of a religion." Angela began toying with a piece of her hair that fell in front of her shoulder. "She's slowly been learning how to think like a Lutheran over the years, but she still holds on to some stuff from her fundamentalist upbringing. Some of it she thinks it's important to hang onto because Dad _is_ a minister, and so she feels like we - our family - need to hold ourselves to a higher standard of behavior."

"And acting like a Victorian debutante is part of that 'higher standard'?" I asked, still trying to wrap my head around it. When I was a kid, I had sometimes gone to one church or another with friends and had always enjoyed it. Sometimes I had wished that my mom would pick a religion and stick to it - she had been everything from Catholic to Buddhist at various points. It seemed like church services would be a good way to meet people and make friends outside of school. What Angela was describing to me just sounded _insane_ , though.

She unexpectedly blushed. "It's very important to her that I - you know - _save myself_ for marriage, but it's even more than that. She thinks it's a bad example if the pastor's daughter is getting into situations where - _things_ \- could happen, even if I don't actually _do_ anything."

"Hold up," I said, shaking my head, "so basically what she's saying is that if some girl at your church decides to have sex before she's married or whatever, it's _your fault_ if you even have the _opportunity_ to have had sex? Even if you don't?"

Angela let out her breath in an annoyed huff. "Pretty much. Wow, it sounds even more crazy when you say it."

"It's crazy even if you _were_ to mess around with someone," I told her. "I mean, what happened to personal responsibility? How does what _you_ do - no matter what it is - make you responsible for what _other_ people do?"

"Well…" she took a couple more fries as she thought about what she wanted to say. "Churches are supposed to be communities of people who help each other act in a more - I don't know - a _better_ way. The way God wants people to act. So we are supposed to help each other. But you're right - helping isn't the same as taking responsibility for what other people do. My mom takes it too far and justifies it because Dad is the pastor and she thinks that makes our family more influential."

"So does your dad agree?" I asked.

"No," she answered, shaking her head. "They were _discussing_ it when I left. The thing is, I don't even care about the dance. Jessica talked me into asking Brian. I don't like him and I know he doesn't like me."

"So it's not even a real date. Are you upset based on the principle of the thing? Or because you don't want to have to back out?" I said, offering up my best guesses.

"I'm upset based on the _applied_ principle of the thing," she sighed. "I don't like Brian, but...there is _someone_."

"I knew it!" I yelped, and then covered my mouth with my hand as several heads from around the dining room turned our direction. "Sorry," I said in a lower voice as Angela blushed and jokingly shook her fist at me. "I just - I was thinking about it when I was trying to decide whom to talk to about Edward. I guessed that you liked someone. Am I allowed to ask his name? It's got to be someone from school, right?"

She blushed again and crossed her arms over her chest. "It doesn't really matter, because I can't do anything about it."

"It matters to you and so it matters to me because I care about you. Come on," I wheedled, "don't you want the chance to be all giggly about him with someone?"

"Are you going to be giggly about Edward in return?" she asked.

"Sure," I replied with a shrug. I could tell her what had happened in the parking lot, even if I would need to edit the end a little.

"Ben Cheney," Angela sighed.

"Oh yeah." I had trig, gym and government with Ben. I had noticed him mostly because he was pretty much the only Asian person I had seen in Forks. There were a few Latino families around, too, and of course, with the reservation so close, a lot of Native Americans, but small towns weren't exactly known for their ethnic and racial diversity. Forks was no exception. "Ben's cute in a nerdy way," I told Angela.

"Yeah, super cute," she agreed, her cheeks still bright red.

"He's really good at trig, you know," I told her thoughtfully. "Maybe you should get him to tutor you. That's not suspicious, right? And then you'd have an excuse to talk to him."

She was shaking her head before I got even halfway through my idea. "I can't ask him that," she told me in a strangled voice.

"Is your unrequited crush mostly a problem with your mom, or is it mostly about you being too shy to make a move on him?" I demanded.

"It's mostly _both_ ," she retorted, hiding her face in her arms. "And now," she told me peeking out, "it's definitely your turn to talk about Edward."

I decided to give her a break. We could come back to Ben later - maybe after I had let it percolate for a while. I might come up with something - and it might even be something she would actually agree to. "That's fine. I haven't had a chance to tell you what happened after Spanish today…" I began.

* * *

 **The Playlist**

Classical

Claire De Lune - Claude Debussy

Piano Sonata No.12 in F - Mozart

Pavane pour une infante défunte - Maurice Ravel

Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No.5 in E-Flat Major: II. Adagio un poco moto - Beethoven

Les Jeux d'eaux a la Villa d'Este, S.163 - Franz Liszt

Nocturne en me bémol majeur opus 9: Ballade en Sol Mineur No.1 - Frédéric Chopin

Ave Maria - Bach & Charles Gounod

Orchestral Suite No.3 in D Major, BWV 1068: Gavottes I & II alternativement - Bach

Swan Lake Waltz - Tchaikovsky

Also sprach Zarathustra, Op.30, TrV 176: Von den Hinterweltlern - Richard Strauss

1900-1939

The Yellow Dog Rag/Blues - W.C. Handy

One O' Them Things - James Chapman & Leroy Smith

Dallas Blues - Hart A. Wand (Louis Armstrong version)

Keep Your Lamp Trimmed And Burning - Blind Willie Johnson

Dinah - Bing Crosby & The Mills Brothers

Bye Bye Blackbird - Sammy Davis, Jr.

Honeysuckle Rose - Ella Fitzgerald & Count Basie

Bolero Sentimental - Elinor Rodriguez

I Got Rhythm - Ethel Waters

Would You Like To Take A Walk? - Bing Crosby & Rosemary Clooney

1940 - 1969

My Baby Just Cares For Me - Nina Simone

La vie en rose - Edith Piaf

My Favorite Things - John Coltrane

Su Zhou He Bian (By the Suzhou River) - Yao Li & Yao Min

Rose, Rose, I Love You - The Shanghai Restoration Project (a modern cover)

It Ain't Me, Babe - Bob Dylan

Ohio - Crosby, Stills & Nash

You Don't Own Me - Lesley Gore

Who'll Stop The Rain - Creedence Clearwater Revival

Cry Baby - Janis Joplin

1970 - 1999

Suffragette City - David Bowie

Mr. Cardiac - Firewater

Comfortably Numb - Pink Floyd

The Prophet's Song - Queen

Strange Fire - Indigo Girls

You're All I've Got Tonight - The Cars

Don't Dream It's Over - Crowded House

Edith Wharton's Figurines - Suzanne Vega

Born In the U.S.A. - Bruce Springsteen (Tracks album version)

Hit Me With Your Best Shot - Pat Benatar

21st Century

Boum Boum Boum - MIKA

Adventures In Solitude - The New Pornographers

The A Team - Ed Sheeran

Pretty Girl From Annapolis - The Avett Brothers

Float On - Modest Mouse

More Than This - Vanessa Carlton

We're Going To Be Friends - The White Stripes

Baadal - A.R. Rahman

St. James Ballroom - Alice Francis

Bullet - Steel Train


	28. Chapter 28

Note: No, you're not going crazy - I posted two chapters today. (Or, I don't know, maybe you _are_ going crazy. Not about this, though.) My class just ended in a flurry of stress (group project and presentation - enough said) and I'm taking a vacation, which for me means turning into a hermit. I might still answer PMs and reviews since they're delivered to my email and I like to keep an orderly inbox. Maybe not, though. Maybe I'll stop checking my email.

Here you've got Edward's first step towards telling Isobel about vampires and her reaction. Next Saturday will be Port Angeles.

* * *

XXVIII.

"Whether you believe it or not, it's true," I told Isobel.

She was silent for a moment, glaring across the table at me. Around us swirled the normal sounds of high school lunchtime, but our little corner of the cafeteria was frostily silent.

This wasn't going especially well. I had started off badly by wanting to have lunch alone with her. Or rather - by _deciding_ we would have lunch alone and sending Alice off without actually asking. "That's not the deal," Isobel had reminded me.

"We need to talk about yesterday," I had countered.

She had given me a repressive frown. "I know that, but you don't get to unilaterally alter deals. That isn't how this works."

I had apologized, but she hadn't been ready to immediately forgive me, so I got on with saying the things I needed to tell her leading up to explaining everything. She needed to know, before I started giving up secrets, that I didn't deserve the label she had given me after the accident with Tyler. I wasn't _good_. I was the farthest thing from it.

She didn't believe me. In retrospect, I probably should have waited for forgiveness.

Now we were glaring across a table at each other.

"I _believe_ what I have evidence for, and the evidence doesn't support your claim," she argued.

"You don't have all the evidence," I returned, burying my fingers in my hair. This was…awful. Worse, even, than I had imagined. Isobel's refusal to believe what I told her about myself would have been flattering had there been any chance that she was right about me. But she wasn't. She wasn't. I didn't deserve her good opinion and soon she would know it, too.

"It's not like you're offering me any new evidence to change my mind!" she hissed, leaning forward. " _Telling_ me that you're not the good guy - that you're some kind of villain - after we've become friends, after you leap to my defense every time I'm in a Tyler or Mike situation, after you _saved my life_ is not convincing. All it does is make me think that you don't see yourself clearly at _all_. Like body dysmorphia, but with your entire _personality_."

I let my head hang as she finished speaking so that I wouldn't have to meet her eyes, hating myself more in this moment than I ever had before. She was the one who didn't see me clearly - she saw me as I wanted to be, not as I was. Why couldn't I be the person she saw? Why did I have to be...this? "I'm going to give you the evidence," I muttered. I was going to give her more evidence than she could probably take. "I just want to prepare you for it first."

"Right now?" she asked.

I risked a glance at her. Her eyes were wide with surprise. And maybe fear? I couldn't tell. "Am I giving you the evidence right now?" I clarified.

She nodded.

"No," I told her, watching with a complicated ball of mixed-up emotions as her shoulders relaxed. "It's not...something we should talk about in public."

She crossed her arms. "Okay. Maybe we could talk after school - but don't think I'm willing to go somewhere private with you for lunch tomorrow. The deal was - "

"I won't be here for lunch tomorrow," I interrupted. "I'm…" It seemed silly to lie to her about something like this when I was about to tell her everything else. But what else _could_ I tell her right now, before she actually knew anything? "I'm going camping, remember? We leave tomorrow morning."

"Oh." Her brow furrowed and her hands gripped her crossed arms, making it look more like she was hugging herself.

What was she thinking? I didn't know, but I did know that she wanted me to follow the rules we had agreed to. "Alice and I will join you and your friends for lunch on Monday," I promised. "If you want…" I hesitated, not really wanting to offer what I was about to offer, but knowing that Isobel would probably appreciate it. "If you want us to, we'll eat with your group Tuesday, too. To make up for today."

For a moment she stared at me, but then a smile touched her lips and she stopped gripping her arms. "I would like that, thank you."

There was no guarantee she would still like it Tuesday, but I didn't point that out.

Neither of us spoke for a long moment. I didn't know what to say and she seemed to be lost in thought. I wondered, as always, what she was thinking, especially when she raised one finger to her lips and began tapping them lightly, unconsciously taunting me. I didn't realize that I was staring with helpless longing until she spoke again. "You're going to need a lot of evidence, Edward. A _lot_ \- because I have a lot of evidence that you're a really nice guy."

I tried to return her smile, but I couldn't. I had the evidence. I had all I would ever need and more. "Don't make plans after school on Monday," I told her. "We can start talking about details then."

"That will work," she agreed, the smile slipping from her face.

We both fell silent again - but this time it was distinctly uncomfortable. I cast about for something to say - preferably something that would once more lighten Isobel's expression.

She beat me to it. "Are you looking forward to going camping?" she asked with a sigh, rolling her shoulders as though loosening tense muscles.

I was looking forward to my race with Jasper and Emmett - at least a little - but I couldn't talk about that yet. "I'm looking forward to seeing that movie with you more," I said, dodging the question.

"Have you seen a production of _Les Mis_?" she asked. "Or do you just know it from the soundtrack?"

I had seen the very first run of _Les Mis_ on Broadway, but not only was it another thing I couldn't yet talk about, the circumstances surrounding it were...not the sort of thing I wanted to dwell on. Still, there was probably no harm in admitting that I had seen it, as long as I didn't get too specific. Alice had already given Isobel the impression that some of our family liked live theatre.

"Yes," I said. "I saw a Broadway production a while back."

Her eyes widened a little and she smiled. "Oh yeah? I'm jealous - I've only ever seen a school production that this arts high school in Phoenix put on a couple years ago. It was pretty good, but it wasn't _Broadway_."

We spent the rest of lunch discussing - perhaps a little too determinedly - the various operas, ballets, plays and musicals we had seen. None of it mattered much, especially in the face of the reality I would begin revealing Monday, but it was safe and I enjoyed hearing more about what she liked. I found out, for instance, that she had only seen three ballets - _The Nutcracker_ , _Swan Lake_ , and _Giselle_ \- and of those liked _Giselle_ the best. She told me a little more about her mother, too, in the course of explaining all the high school productions of Broadway musicals she had seen - the son of her mother's employer attended the arts school she had mentioned. Most of the employees got yearly bonuses, but Renee was a somewhat irregular employee, so, on learning that she liked musicals, she had been offered tickets to whatever the school was putting on at the end of each school year instead. She had accepted happily, preferring - according to Isobel - tickets over money anyway.

The bell eventually put an end to our conversation and we parted. I spoke with her briefly again in our Spanish class and once more after school, but she was in a hurry to get to the grocery store to buy ingredients so she could leave something for her father to eat while she was in Port Angeles on Saturday.

That night was...long.

Alice and Jasper both took pity on me and requested that I get out my guitar so that they could sing. Carlisle came down and joined around midnight and we had an impromptu concert, much to Esme's delight. Emmett was less delighted - his mind was entirely on racing and he would have happily spent the entire night talking about it - and Rosalie retreated to the garage to get away from us. Playing didn't keep me from thinking about Isobel, but it gave me something specific to think about as opposed to finding myself constantly nagged by nebulous anxiety. I wondered if she would enjoy a night like this, what kinds of requests she would make, and whether she would participate or, like Esme, relegate herself to the audience.

Jasper decided it was time to begin readying his car around dawn and our group broke up. I was equally inclined to be done by then - my car needed no tweaking, but wisps of a melody had kept troubling me as I listened to the other three singing and wondered about Isobel. Esme took Alice up to help her decide on curtains for the window seat she had nearly finished in our second-floor library, leaving me alone with the piano.

I worked on drawing out the melody teasing the edge of my mind, already certain of the opening chords but not quite knowing their rhythm. After some trials, I finally settled on one that was reminiscent of human breathing, but longer and slower - the cadence of sleeping respiration. The cadence - I might as well be honest - of _Isobel's_ respiration while _she_ slept. It was a wistful, longing melody, one that expressed what I felt knowing that I could not be near her as she slept - knowing that, even if I were near her, her mind would be far away from me in the land of human dreams. Waking her mind was more distant than that of anyone else I had ever met; sleeping I was shut out entirely. The pain of that separation found its release in my music.

The result was...not quite a lullaby. More like a nocturne. Isobel's Nocturne.

I spent most of the day working on it. Though a great deal of the melody was simply in my head as though waiting to be written down, there were a few more difficult sections - full of unexpected chord progressions - that I had to spend time toying with to get right. I wanted Isobel to like the song I had written about her, for one thing, and would be unhappy if she lumped it in with "pretentious avant-garde crap." That meant, I thought, smiling to myself, that it needed both rhythm _and_ what she would consider a coherent melody. Even so, the melody couldn't be too predictable, because predictability was more or less the opposite of Isobel herself. I needed a balance.

Eventually Emmett's enthusiasm for racing wouldn't let him leave me alone any longer - especially since Rosalie and Jasper were otherwise occupied. Since he had nothing to do, he dragged me up to the library to look at dirt bikes. Jasper's suggestion had taken root in fertile ground, and he wanted a second opinion on the options he was considering after several hours of intensive research.

"If we're spending this much, we're going to need to expand the garage so we have somewhere to _keep_ them." Our garage already had the capacity to hold sixteen cars, and the workshop had another space with professional-grade equipment that Rose used for examining, repairing and testing upgrades to our vehicles. We could probably find space for two dirt bikes, but Emmett was talking about buying three or four.

Emmett shrugged at my objection. "Esme would enjoy that, and she could add on that upper floor she's been talking about. Maybe the pixie girl would finally get a real lab."

I snorted. "I think Esme would claim the space as a drafting room."

"You know Rosie'd be all over _that_. Get a 3D printer up there - some top-of-the-line computers with AutoDesk-"

"Carlisle might enjoy the chance to experiment with new prosthetics," I mused.

"Shit, let's get these bikes _ordered_ and give everyone the excuse to get started on what they want to do anyway!"

I stopped him, pointing out that adding onto the garage would still take time. We could get two now, but we needed to announce our plans to the rest of the family to make sure that everyone else was willing to go along with them. He grumbled good-naturedly but couldn't deny that I had a point, so we sat down to seriously argue out the merits of the various bikes he had found, including whether we wanted two-stroke engines, four-stroke, or one of each. Since we had no real experience with the differences, we decided on one of each to start with. Emmett, however, was fairly certain that we would prefer (and could easily handle) the more intense power delivery of a two-stroke engine.

Jasper and Rosalie came up to get us at dusk - we were supposed to drive out to the road where we were going to race, but they were quickly drawn into our argument over which brands and models would be best to start with. Rosalie quickly took control and made the final decision - not only was Emmett essentially wrapped around her finger, it would be foolish to ignore the advice of our car and engine expert.

"Leave it," she snapped at Emmett as he moved to begin the process of ordering our bikes. "We're already running late. They'll be here when you get back."

Esme, Carlisle and Alice were all waiting for us. The latter two were a surprise - usually they had little interest in racing. It seemed this was to be a family gathering, though.

We piled into the cars we were going to be racing and drove over, warming ourselves and our cars up a bit on the easier, paved roads. I hadn't driven the Tesla much, but I found I was pleased with the way it handled. The acceleration was responsive and it hugged the road like nothing else I had ever driven - even better, maybe, than Jasper's R8. We would find out for certain soon.

Everyone got out at the small turnout at the bottom of the logging road we had chosen. We liked it because it wasn't as narrow as most logging roads, at least not for the first couple of miles. Logging trucks, with care, would be able to pass passenger vehicles headed up to where the work was happening, and it featured several wider stretches to allow the trucks to pass each _other_ without one having to back up all the way to the camp or back to the main road. It still wasn't _safe_ \- it might have been even less safe than the narrower roads since there would be room for us to try to pass each other at any point. That did make it more _exciting_ , though.

Between Alice's gift of foresight and my inability to entirely shut her out, there was no point in drawing straws or playing rock-paper-scissors. Instead she told us the order we would end up choosing: me against Emmett, Emmett against Jasper, and then me against Jasper. Emmett didn't have the patience to wait for his races.

Rose was riding with Emmett in his race against me, so she climbed in the car with him and we got into position. The others, meanwhile, chose some trees from which they could view most of our race track. During the race I wasn't taking part in, I would provide additional play-by-play commentary, but for now they would just have to put up with missing parts of the action.

Emmett pulled up beside me and rolled down Rosalie's window, gunning his engine and grinning like an idiot - which was exactly what he looked like when he was a fraction of a second late in responding to Jasper's "GO!" shouted from somewhere in the treetops. I could pick out the sound of his swearing over the noise of our engines as I immediately pulled ahead.

I spent the first part of the race keeping myself positioned so that Emmett couldn't pull past me as I tested my car against the non-ideal gravel surface of the road. When I was reasonably certain that I understood its limits, however, I let loose on the throttle and began slowly but inexorably pulling ahead as I took corners at speeds that Emmett's Corvette couldn't possibly match. In the end, it was no contest - I won by a substantial margin.

Emmett was going to need a different car if he wanted to race on these tightly winding roads.

Losing the first race caused Emmett to get serious, and he booted Rosalie from the car before he raced against Jasper. He spent a few minutes checking his car over to make sure that the race with me hadn't damaged anything necessary, like a tire. I leaned against my Tesla, waiting and listening to opinions from the peanut gallery seated far above our heads. I didn't need to join them, of course, in order to see the entire race, and they didn't need me up there to narrate for them. I could speak in a conversational tone from here and it would be perfectly audible to them.

Rose spent a few moments helping Emmett look over the Corvette before turning away from him to - I thought at first - join the others in the trees. Instead, though, she approached me.

I could immediately tell she was trying to hide her thoughts from me because her mind was hard at work deriving complex solutions from long, difficult calculus equations. "I just wanted to say 'thank you,'" she told me, her tone making it sound as though _she_ were the one conferring the favor on _me_ , "and that…"

She hesitated and her mathematical smoke-screen faltered for the briefest moment. I didn't have time to see her actual thoughts, but I felt some of the emotion behind them: anger - perhaps even fury - but directed at herself more than at me. I certainly still had my share, but whatever Rose's problem was, it wasn't _just_ with me or Isobel.

"We need to discuss your thing with the Swan girl," she went on in a lower voice. "I know that. I'm just...not ready yet."

I nodded an acknowledgment, and then she _did_ disappear into the treetops.

It made me curious - what would she have to say when she finally _was_ ready? What _was_ her anger all about?

There was no more time to ponder it - Emmett and Jasper were ready to go. I watched carefully, waiting until I was certain that Emmett was paying attention, and then roared the starting word. They took off in a storm of squealing tires, smoke, and thrown gravel.

Emmett's showing was better this time. He knew the course and had a good idea of what his car could do, while Jasper still needed to work that out. For several seconds they were neck-and-neck, maneuvering around the tight corners in perfect sync, less than a foot separating them as they drove side by side.

Slowly, however, Jasper found his footing and began to pull ahead. There were cheers and groans from the spectators - the latter mostly belonging to Rosalie while Alice was responsible for most of the former - as it became increasingly clear that Jasper simply had a car better suited to the course we had chosen. I kept up my commentary, but it was a foregone conclusion before they had reached the halfway mark, and no one was surprised when Jasper won by several feet.

This time both Alice and Rose came down to congratulate and commiserate with their respective mates. Alice bounced over to Jasper, chanting "Jazz, Jazz, Jazz, Jazz," and clapping her little hands. He scooped her up into his arms and planted several kisses on her mouth before setting her down again and sending her back to Esme and Carlisle.

Emmett, for his part, was swearing good-naturedly at his car, our cars, the road, and conditions in general. "Rematch!" he demanded, pointing at both of us.

"Another night," Jasper drawled with a chuckle. "Let me and Edward have our race, you attention-deficit gorilla."

"Next time we come up here, we can bring the bikes," I promised Emmett. "We'll race our _cars_ on a road that will give you more chance to accelerate."

He shook his head and sighed. "Rosie, I think I need another car," he admitted, eyeing my Tesla with confused disappointment.

She patted his giant bicep. "Just wait till I've had a chance to reverse-engineer Edward's engine, baby. I'll build you the best damned electric car that's ever been designed."

Emmett climbed up to join the rest of the family while Rose thanked me as I held the door open so that she could get in. Jasper and I positioned ourselves, both of us focused on the task ahead and both equally ready when Emmett roared his "GO!" from the treetops.

It was clear from the very first that the race would be close. First Jasper would pull slightly ahead and then I would, jostling for position and trying to run the other off one side of the road as much as get in front. The trees and stripped, exposed hills swept past. One wrong move for either of us and it would have been over - both for the race and for our cars.

Neither of us made a wrong move.

Rose's weight changed the balance of my car very slightly - not much, but enough that I could feel the difference. I couldn't turn quite as sharply or at quite the same speed. It was enough that, slowly, Jasper started finding himself in front more and more often, and managed to secure his victory by a matter of three or four inches.

Alice led the others down from the trees to surround him in a cheering group, and Esme snapped several pictures of him kissing her. I rolled my eyes at them, but joined in with some applause - he had won mostly fair and square. I had invited Rosalie to ride along, after all. Another time the result might be different, and there would be plenty of chances for rematches.

We all spent a little while looking over the various little dents and dings caused by thrown gravel on our cars, rehashing the results of the race and what we might have done differently. As our discussion began winding down, Alice suggested that, as long as we were out in the woods, we might as well go hunting together.

I knew exactly what she was doing - keeping me occupied as well as she could until daylight came and effectively trapped me in the house and its immediate environs. She knew as well as I did that, given too much time to think, I would be unable to resist the siren call of Isobel's presence.

It was hard to decide whether I felt more grateful or resentful for her intervention. Either way, I agreed to her plan and we went hunting.


	29. Chapter 29

Note: Well, my week of hermit-hood turned into enforced hermit-hood because I got sick. At least it waited until after my class was finished, I guess. So anyway, I pretty much didn't do anything all week except write an 8.5k word chapter for your enjoyment (for reference, this is more than 2.5k words longer than my second-longest chapter). Soooo, yeah, totally not updating again until next Saturday. Especially since that one is shaping up to be similar to or possibly even longer than this one.

One last thing: there might be more errors than usual in here. I only slept about three hours last night because of coughing. I'll come back later and edit again.

* * *

XXIX.

Saturday morning dawned - a rare occurrence in Forks where morning was usually just marked by a lightening of the general gloom. I was awake, lying in the midst of my rumpled bed and watching the pink-tinged sky gradually turn blue.

It was the end of my second sleepless night.

My argument with Edward on Thursday had brought on a lot of reflection. It had somehow failed to occur to me until that lunch that if I got involved with Edward, his secrets _might_ be my business after all. It also forced me to acknowledge some other flaws in the way I had been thinking of the whole thing. Up to this point, I had been half-jokingly looking for ways to support my Pale Pretty People cult explanation. Though I thought of it as a joke, I actually had invested a fair amount of emotion into it, taking refuge in its explanatory power when the things I noticed fit. When they didn't fit - I tended to ignore them.

Case in point: Edward's ice-cold skin.

I didn't know for certain that _all_ the Cullens were equally cold, but it was a reasonable assumption. I knew that both Edward and Dr. Cullen were, and Esme's gloves on the day we met had not escaped my notice. Alice, too, had been fairly careful never to allow skin-to-skin contact.

Taking part in a cult, even one that somehow conferred special powers - whether through natural or supernatural means - would not make the Cullens _cold_. The range for acceptable body temperature in humans was quite narrow - not as narrow as it was for birds, but narrower than it was for cold-blooded animals like lizards and amphibians. Beyond those acceptable limits, the proteins in our cells denatured and ceased to function.

Physically, the Cullens _could not_ be both as cold as they felt and alive.

At least not if they were human.

And maybe not if they were anything else, too. I had no evidence that being cold slowed them as it would a cold-blooded animal like a snake. Nor had I noticed them basking in the sun or warmth from nearby heaters.

It was completely crazy - they looked and mostly acted human and there was absolutely no reason to assume that, say, aliens from another planet would somehow evolve convergently with humans - which was probably why it had never really occurred to me before. But whatever they were, they simply _could not_ be human, and whether they were alive or not was debatable.

That didn't tell me what they _were_. Aliens was, perhaps, the most likely - even if convergent evolution through natural selection were ruled out, _artificial_ selection could do wonders, as could surgery. The Prime Directive in _Star Trek_ forbade advanced civilizations from revealing themselves to those that were significantly less advanced. I had seen episodes dealing with the ways in which the Federation sent scouts out to collect data without revealing the presence of extraterrestrial life. Most of the time it involved disguises that included surgery or prosthetics. A more time-consuming but but less easily-discovered disguise might involve careful breeding - or even genetic manipulation - to attain a human-looking individual.

From there the speculations got crazier. At least lifeforms from other planets was a _natural_ explanation. Everything else I could come up with was supernatural in one way or another.

All of that had kept me awake Thursday night. Last night I had turned my attention to what all this meant for the relationship between me and Edward.

He harbored romantic feelings for me - of that much I was reasonably certain. He had never pursued me unequivocally, though. _Most_ of his attention could be explained away as friendship. Almost all of it, in fact - except that there was just so _much_ of it. That meant, I supposed, that it would be difficult somehow for us to be together. That hurdle could be as low as my willingness to be with someone inhuman and probably genetically incompatible with me, or as high as us somehow - I don't know - being poisonous to one another if we were confined within a space for too long.

I didn't think that it was _impossible_ , though, because Alice had been pursuing me _for_ Edward and had not been equivocal at _all_. That left me...needing to hear Edward's explanations, I supposed. There simply wasn't enough information for me to make any decisions.

It led me back to why Edward considered himself to be a bad person, though. Could it be because he was lying about his humanity? Did he feel he was leading me on? Were he and his family the advance scouts of an alien invasion?

I didn't know any of that, either, but I couldn't shake the conviction that _Edward himself_ was a good, kind and generous person. Maybe it was just because he had saved my life. Maybe it was just because he was utterly beautiful and so obviously concerned about my well-being. I wasn't certain, but I felt it and I couldn't convince myself I might be wrong.

I finally drifted into my first real sleep of the night reflecting on the reasons I had for believing in Edward.

My alarm woke me about two hours later. Jessica was coming to get me at ten and, expecting that after _one_ sleepless night I might oversleep, I had wisely set my alarm. I hadn't been counting on a _second_ sleepless night, but my alarm worked just as annoyingly well to wake me up from a two-hour nap as it would have from a real night's sleep.

I rolled out of bed with a groan and prayed silently that a shower would do something to alleviate my grogginess.

Usually I was more of a latte than brewed coffee kind of girl - which meant I drank very little coffee while living in Forks - but this morning I felt like I legitimately needed some. I filled and started the machine after I was done with my shower, earning myself a surprised look from Charlie, who was already awake. "Want a refill?" I asked with a shrug, gesturing to the mug in front of him on the coffee table.

"Uh, sure," he replied.

"So what are you girls doing today, again?" he called after me as I retraced my steps back to the kitchen.

I'd given him a rundown of our plans earlier in the week, but clearly a bunch of girls shopping for a dance didn't stick in his mind. I told him about it again as I busied myself making a bowl of oatmeal. "Shopping in Port Angeles - the Valentine's Day dance is coming up, you know - and then getting dinner and seeing a movie. Alice and Edward are going to join us for the movie," I added, knowing it would please him.

"That right? Huh. Are you - " he began.

I didn't let him finish that question. "It's a _group outing_ , Dad," I insisted. Not only did I _not_ want him hounding me about Edward, I figured I shouldn't get his hopes up before I knew what it was Edward had been hiding.

He turned his face away to hide a smile, and I realized that my speed in denying there was anything going on had only made matters worse. "That's not what I was going to ask, Bells. Did anyone ask you to the dance?"

"It's girl's choice," I explained, "but, uh, yes - someone did. I turned him down. I'm going to go to Seattle to get my shelves that Saturday." He opened his mouth, but I cut him off. "Before you ask - no, Edward isn't going either. From what I gather, he never goes."

This time Charlie didn't bother to hide his smile. "Actually, I was wondering who asked you," he told me.

Damn it. I was going to blame being tired for my mouth running ahead of my mind like this. I turned away and busied myself with the beeping coffee maker to hide my blush. "Mike Newton," I tossed back over my shoulder, answering his question.

"Newton, huh?" he said, his tone boding no good for Mike. "His parents are decent people, though they aren't from around here. I've heard that's Mike's been caught at a few parties that my guys have had to break up, though."

"Well, Jessica is interested in him, so I'm certainly not going to date him," I reassured Charlie. The coffee hadn't quite finished filtering through the machine, so I got out a mug for myself and pulled the milk out of the fridge.

"So Edward isn't going to the dance?" Charlie mused. "Didn't anyone ask him? He seems like a decent-looking boy, though I suppose he doesn't look much like that Justin Blieber you kids seem to like these days."

"Justin _Bieber_ ," I corrected with a groan, "and the 'you kids' demographic you're referencing here is between about ten and fourteen. I doubt anyone in high school would admit to liking that crap. Edward doesn't go to dances because he doesn't want to, not because no one would go with him. Trust me - from the sound of it, he's been pursued at one time or another by every girl at school." I filled my mug about half full of milk and went to see if Charlie had any sugar stashed anywhere. If not I would have to use the honey I usually reserved for tea, and I really didn't know how well honey went with coffee.

Charlie lapsed into thoughtful silence while I rummaged. "Did he turn you down?" he asked as I emerged, dusty but triumphant, with a small container of sugar from the very back of the pantry.

The question deflated my triumph. "I didn't _ask_ ," I told Charlie. "Seriously, Dad, _I'm going to Seattle that day_."

"Alright, alright," he said, letting it go. And why shouldn't he? I had already revealed a lot more than I'd intended with my stupid assumptions about his preoccupation. It turned out that _I_ was much more preoccupied by Edward than he was.

Well, that was probably natural, all things considered.

I came out to give him his coffee a moment later, and then took mine - and my oatmeal - to the dining room table to eat.

Either the coffee or the shot of adrenaline I got when I contemplated the fact that I was going to a _movie_ with Edward tonight seemed to help wake me up. Even though the movie wasn't a date, I thought that anything might happen in the dark. Maybe he would put his arm around me. Maybe I would take his hand - and maybe, for once, he wouldn't pull his away. Maybe I would do exactly what Jessica had told me she was going to do with one of the other girls in the group and lay my head on his shoulder. _Anything_ might happen. It was definitely worth waking up for.

Jessica was just about right on time, so I left Charlie with a kiss on the head.

"I probably won't be here when you get home tonight," he warned me as I put on my coat by the door. Sun or no sun, January in Forks was _cold_. "I have an evening shift."

"No problem," I told him. "I'll call and leave you a message if I decide to sleep over at someone's house or anything like that."

"Sounds good, Bells. Have fun and tell Jessica to drive carefully."

I rolled my eyes. "I'll be sure to do that, Dad. Have a good day at work."

Glad to be going somewhere - especially after everything I had inadvertently revealed to Charlie - I ran out to Jessica's car and slid into the backseat next to Angela. She gave me a big smile while Jessica and June giggled and bounced with excitement. "This is going to be the _best day_ ," Jessica told us. "I can _feel_ it."

On the ride over, we listened to a mix CD Jessica had put together full of girl-power songs - and no Justin Bieber - singing along loudly and off-key. It was a good thing Edward hadn't joined us for _this_ part - we might have destroyed his ears forever. The CD was just about an hour long and ended as we entered the Port Angeles city limits.

"So what's our plan for today?" Angela - always the organized one - asked as Jessica switched back to the radio and turned down the sound.

"First we're going to look around at some thrift stores to find clothes for Isobel. You brought money, right?" she asked, meeting my eyes briefly in the rearview mirror.

"I have fifty bucks," I told her.

"That's not much," she tsked in disapproval, "but we can work with it. After shopping with Isobel, we'll get lunch at New Day, and then we'll go shopping for the rest of us, grab dinner at Bella Italia, and head over to the movie theater. That work for everyone?"

There were murmurs of assent from all of us.

"When are we meeting Alice and," June sighed expressively, " _Edward_."

We all chuckled. "At the theater," Jessica told her. "Alice texted me and Isobel yesterday morning before she left to go camping to get the time."

While organization wasn't usually Jessica's forte, it seemed shopping was different. She had everything planned out for maximum efficiency. We started with thrift stores on the west end of town and slowly made our way east. It was interesting shopping with Jessica and June on the one hand, who were both very trendy, and Angela on the other, who seemed to like a more classic look reminiscent of the 40s or 50s. I had no style to speak of, so I let them battle it out and bought what I was told.

"This is working out pretty well," June reassured me as Angela and Jessica brandished skirts at each other several feet away. In a moment I would need to speak up and let Jess know that the one she had chosen was _way_ too short and I would never wear it. Among other concerns, Charlie might have a heart attack if I tried.

"Oh yeah?" I asked June. "How so?"

"Well, all these really classic things that Angela is picking out will pretty much never go completely out of style. They're fairly timeless. If you wore them all together, though, you would look really outdated. But with the stuff Jessica and I are finding, it gives them a nice modern flair. So you'll look good."

I laughed. "I just have to remember to match Angela-pieces with Jessica-pieces."

She gave me a thumbs up. "Exactly. That should be pretty easy, right?"

I shook my head, amused, and went to go break up the Skirt Skirmish, after which I had to intervene in the Battle of the Blouses and the Great Cardigan Kerfuffle. I came out of it with six new pieces of clothing to add to my admittedly rather sad wardrobe and a reaffirmed conviction that I didn't care much for shopping. For a while there, I'd thought it might just be shopping with my mom since I'd never tried it with friends. But nope-it was the shopping, not whom I went with.

We got lunch at a little cafe that mostly served sandwiches, salads and soup, but also made fresh pizza. All of us, unsurprisingly, opted for pizza. Jessica persuaded the other two that they should start looking for dresses at the only department store in town, even though they would probably end up at the only bridal shop in town. She had to explain to me when I expressed confusion that bridal shops weren't just for weddings, but had all kinds of special-occasion dresses.

After lunch, we walked the two or so blocks to the department store. It was immediately obvious even to me why Jessica didn't expect to find anything there - while their clothing selection might be adequate for everyday wear (and I wasn't convinced of that, either), the fancy dresses were confined to one lonely and abandoned-looking rack. My friends sorted through them, looking uninspired, and didn't try anything on. "Maybe we could come back for shoes and jewelry," June suggested. "Those will probably be less expensive here, even if the selection is more limited."

"Good idea," Jessica agreed. "First we need dresses, though."

She led us back the way we had come, past the cafe where we had eaten, and turned down another street a block or two further on. In a few moments we were ensconced in a comfortable boutique, getting patronizingly chattered at by a sales lady. I was abruptly glad that I had come along - I got the impression that the sales lady was the kind of person who held the conviction that the best looking dress for anyone was also the most expensive.

The parade of dresses that followed would have been dizzying had it not been for the small pad of paper and pen I habitually kept stashed in my purse. I dedicated a page to each of my friends and wrote down everything that both had potential and was within their budgets, along with notes on color and fit.

Half an hour in, I felt like I was beginning to understand what Alice saw in clothing design. The ins-and-outs of what looked good on any particular individual _were_ sort of interesting. Jessica, for instance, _had_ to wear something in a medium blue. It both made her skin look like she had just come from tanning on the beach - quite a feat in the middle of winter in Forks - _and_ made her eyes look like someone had enhanced their color in Photoshop. Long skirts weren't her friend, though - they really drew attention just how short she was.

Angela, in contrast, looked _amazing_ in a long skirt, especially with an empire waist. The length of the skirt made her already long legs appear as though they went on virtually forever. Her color was pink or peach - both made her skin glow and gave her hair a darker luster than it normally possessed.

June was the curviest of the three and had a nice hourglass figure. Red looked great on her, but the only bright red dress available was also really short and tight and made her look like a lounge singer on a riverboat. A darker, cranberry-red looked almost as good on her, and the tight-fitting bodice paired with an A-line skirt was both classier and still managed to highlight her curves.

As I had suspected, the sales lady kept trying to urge expensive dresses on my friends, but there were plenty of options that looked great on them and weren't too expensive. Angela and I had to gang up on Jessica to keep her from overspending, but a reminder from June that she still needed to buy shoes and jewelry persuaded her that she should stick to her budget.

It took a solid two and a half hours to reach final dress conclusions for all three of them, and I had a lot of time to think over other things as they chose dresses and changed in and out of them. As was becoming usual, my mind drifted back to Edward as soon as it was freed from other concerns. I was still pondering the problem that had kept me awake all night - namely, the disconnect between my perception of Edward and his perception of himself.

During my sleepless night, I had been working off of the assumption that the thing troubling him was somehow related to his inhumanity. Upon further reflection, though, I wasn't certain that I could draw that conclusion. Alice didn't seem wracked by the same kind of guilt Edward felt - was, in fact, to all appearances often exasperated by his angst. On the other hand, though, he had specifically told me that I needed to know about _his reality_ before I made any decisions. Since I had been referring to the secrets that he and his family kept _collectively_ when I used that phrase, the implication was that his guilty objections were at least tangentially related to more than just his actions or whatever.

Based on all that, I thought that there were two likely scenarios: either Edward and Alice viewed their reality _very_ differently - so differently that Edward considered it a nearly insurmountable obstacle while Alice did not - or Edward's conduct as a whatever-he-was had differed significantly from Alice's, and he felt an immense amount of guilt over that difference. I had no way evaluate which one was _more_ likely, but both seemed to me to be reasonable explanations for the differences in Edward's and Alice's attitudes.

Somehow, even without knowing any details, I thought that my inclination would be to side with Alice. Most might call Alice hopelessly optimistic, but she actually seemed refreshingly pragmatic to me - taking action where action was called for and not particularly troubled by what couldn't be acted on. Edward was moodier and, I thought, more likely to dwell on past actions whose consequences were well beyond changing or righting. I also got the feeling that he was the sort of person who would take way more responsibility than he reasonably could for any little chance failure in his conduct or attitude.

I reached that conclusion not long before my friends all finished choosing their dresses, and found myself returning to contemplate it after each interruption. Each time it seemed to bother me more. Edward _shouldn't_ judge himself so harshly and he shouldn't assume that _I_ would judge him harshly. And yet he did assume it - I saw him assuming it when he was arguing with me Thursday during lunch. It sort of made me...angry.

I began examining my anger as Jessica, June and Angela started looking through the accessories that the bridal shop was offering. Everything they had to choose from was, as June had predicted, overpriced, but the selection was good. Both Jessica and June began seriously contemplating getting either shoes or jewelry from the shop and then either going cheap on the other thing at the department store or just making do with something they already had. Angela decided just as quickly that she didn't want to spend a lot and came to join me on the couch.

I smiled at her as she sat down beside me, but my mind was still on Edward and my anger. I was starting to feel like I needed to _do_ something about my feelings, I just hadn't worked out _what_ yet.

"What's wrong?" Angela asked in a low voice, immediately reading my mood in spite of my attempt at a smile.

I shook my head, knowing that I couldn't possibly explain it. "Something Edward said is just bothering me. I think…" I paused as what I wanted to do slowly became clear. "I think I want to _give_ him something."

Angela raised her eyebrows in polite confusion.

I definitely couldn't explain my impulse to her - I hardly understood it myself. The gesture of gift-giving, especially when it wasn't nearly obligatory, like at Christmas or a birthday, just seemed _right_ somehow. Like by giving him something I was saying that I foresaw a future between us - romantic or otherwise.

I didn't know what I could possibly get for him, though. And before Monday, too...it wouldn't mean what I wanted it to mean if I didn't give it to him before we talked about everything.

Well, I supposed I _was_ in Port Angeles, which was bound to have a better selection of everything than Forks. And I knew he liked music. Maybe I could do something with that. I turned to look at Angela, eyeing her speculatively. "Do you know if there's somewhere to buy music around here?"

She nodded, looking a little wary - like she wasn't entirely convinced of my sanity. "Yeah, there's a store somewhere in this area - I've never been there, though, so I don't remember exactly where it is. You should ask Jessica."

Jessica, of course, wanted to know _why_ I wanted to go, and quickly made the connection to our lunchtime conversation with Edward on Wednesday. It was really no wonder she was the school gossip - unhampered by the sheer weight of disbelief (which I could understand - not only had Edward displayed no interest in anyone before me, the disparity in our levels of attractiveness was no doubt _very_ striking), she had an almost uncanny ability to connect social dots and come out with an image awfully near the truth.

I didn't want to explain anything fully - I _couldn't_ explain anything fully, since I didn't understand my own impulses - so I told her about the playlist Edward had given me after school and let her fill in the rest with her own assumptions. It was close enough to the truth without getting difficult.

"There is a place that sells CDs and stuff near here," Jessica told me at last, "Just down the block from where we had lunch, actually. It's fine if you want to go, but I'm not sure where we'll be when you get done. I suppose you could call."

"Or I could just meet you at the restaurant," I suggested. "It's right across the street from here, right?" June had pointed it out earlier in a friendly attempt to help me learn more about the layout of Port Angeles' cute downtown area. I hadn't told her that my sense of direction was only so-so and it would take a lot more than one trip to get me oriented.

Jessica agreed that my plan was probably the most logical one and gave me directions. I half expected Angela to offer to come with me - she didn't seem to have much interest in accessories, which made sense since she didn't even care about her date - but Jessica demanded her opinion before she could say anything. I shrugged - I liked Angela, of course, but sometimes a quiet walk alone was more pleasant than company, and I had a lot on my mind.

It was noticeably dimmer outside than it had been when we entered the bridal shop, and the clouds were still sparse enough that I could see that the sun was nearing the western horizon, slowly sinking towards an ominous cloudbank. I rolled my eyes - I really hated how short the days were during the winter here. It was barely three and already felt like evening, and once the sun was behind the clouds, it would get dark fast. I needed to hurry if I didn't want to wind up trying to find my way around a largely unfamiliar town in the dark.

Maybe I was paying too much attention to the sky or to trying to figure out what I could possibly buy Edward that he didn't already own, but I somehow missed the cafe where we'd had lunch. I realized I was on the wrong street fairly quickly after turning and knew I had to be too far north, so I cut through a nearby bank parking lot and found myself, fortuitously, right next to the very store I wanted.

Deciding it probably wasn't a sign, but that I was going to take it as one anyway, I went in.

There only seemed to be one person working and he was already helping the only other customer in the store, so there was no one to bother me as I browsed. I doubted that anyone could help me find what I was looking for anyway, seeing as I didn't know myself.

I wished, as I looked through rows of bands whose names I mostly didn't know, that I had a nice phone with internet access instead of the old flip phone that was all Renee and Charlie had ever been able to afford for me. The ability to actually do research would have helped a _lot_. My understanding of Edward's taste in music was fairly broad thanks to his playlist, but also really shallow.

About ten minutes later, I was picking idly through a rack and trying to decide if there was _any_ chance that Edward didn't own every song ever written by Beethoven or Mozart. I very much doubted it, but I really had no idea what I was doing and this whole thing was starting to feel like a really stupid plan.

"Can I help you?" a voice asked behind me, causing me to jump.

I whirled - and stumbled, of course, just barely catching myself on the rack beside me - and found myself looking at the clerk. He was biting his lip in a clear attempt at holding back his laughter at my reaction. I hadn't even heard the other customer leave, but now we were the only two in the store. Though he was young, I thought he was probably at least a couple of years older than me, and he was reasonably attractive in a trying-too-hard-to-look-like-he-just-rolled-out-of-bed sort of way. Actually - that wasn't true. My attractiveness meter had been thrown off by Edward. Jessica and June would both have happily giggled over the guy for _weeks_. His features were all passable and everything, but his hair was - either naturally or not - a glossy dark brown that made his ice-blue eyes almost as mesmerizing as a pair of golden eyes belonging to someone I could name.

I felt my cheeks heat.

"Sorry," he apologized, "I didn't mean to startle you. Looks like you're really absorbed by…" he glanced at the case I had been staring at absently prior to his arrival and grinned, "Celine Dion."

"No," I said, putting the CD aside hastily. "I was just thinking. Hard."

He leaned back casually against the bin behind him and flashed me another grin. "I didn't know that picking music needed that much brainpower."

I snorted. "It does when you're buying music for someone _else_ ," I informed him. Especially when that person had impeccable taste and encyclopedic knowledge of the subject. I sighed. This was a _really_ stupid idea.

His smile softened at whatever he saw in my expression. "Can I help you? It _is_ kinda what I'm here for."

"I don't think so," I replied quickly. "I'm looking for a friend and - I just don't know what to get for him."

"You don't know what he likes?" the clerk asked.

My sigh this time was a bit impatient. There was no point in having this conversation and I would rather wallow in disappointment alone and quietly. "I know some of what he likes," I corrected, "it's just that he's - sort of a musician himself and not only does he know a lot more about music than I do, he probably already owns anything I could possibly come up with." I found myself staring at the floor and rubbed at a spot with the toe of my shoe as a fresh wave of disappointment washed over me. I still really wished I could give him something, but there probably wasn't time to go anywhere else.

It took me a moment to realize that, first, the clerk still existed and, second, he hadn't responded. I glanced up at him to find him watching me with one eyebrow raised. "What?" I asked.

"That sounds _exactly_ like the kind of thing I can help you with," he replied. His grin resurfaced as I blinked at him, thinking that maybe two nights without sleep was starting to catch up with me. This whole conversation was making me feel unusually slow and off balance.

"Really?" I asked. In spite of my confusion - edged with a discomfort I couldn't quite name - the clerk's confidence gave me a little seed of hope.

"Sure," he answered. "Tell me about what you know your friend likes."

"Well, he's a pianist and really seems to enjoy classical piano pieces," I began, going on to list the musicians we had argued about, followed by as much of Edward's playlist as I could remember.

"Pretty eclectic," the clerk said when I had finished, sounding grudging in his approval. "If he's a pianist and you want something special, though…" He paused and glanced back at me, and I nodded eagerly in response. He sighed. "Well, do you know Beethoven's variations?"

"Yeah," I said. Beethoven's Diabelli Variations were something my mom and I could actually agree on when it came to choosing classical music to listen to.

He headed for the back of the store and I followed, stopping when we reached a rack labelled "local." "This is a local composer for the piano whose work consists almost exclusively of variations," the clerk said, picking out a CD and handing it to me. On the front was a picture of a woman dressed in a sari standing next to a piano. "Her variations are based on the traditional Hindu mantras, though."

My fingers tightened involuntarily around the case. Yes, I thought. Yes, this was exactly the kind of thing I was looking for. A smile began to curve my mouth and I looked up at the clerk. "This sounds _perfect_. I don't suppose I could listen to one or two of the songs to make sure?"

I couldn't quite put a name to his expression, but he nodded. "I have a demo for her last album up front. That one was based on the Gayatri mantra, and this new one is the Shanti, but it will still give you a good idea of the kind of work she does."

I nodded eagerly and followed him back up to the front counter.

He brought out a CD and put it into a complicated-looking stereo, and then pulled out and unplugged a pair of headphones. Music instantly filled the store. "Might as well both listen to it since you're the only one in here," he muttered.

We spent a moment silently listening to the music. "Do you know Maurice Ravel?" he asked as the melody began to repeat, this time with a simple harmony thrown in.

It sounded familiar. I spent a moment thinking about the name and decided that Edward had included a piece by a Maurice Ravel on his playlist. "I've heard of him," I told the clerk.

"Well, he has one very famous work that I'm sure you've heard. He's known for building to a crescendo through repetition of the melody, though. This composer tends to do the same since mantras are repetitive by nature."

"Oh, that's interesting," I said. "You really seem to like her." He didn't look like the kind of person who was into classical piano music - I could see tattoos peeking out from below the long-sleeved shirt he was wearing - but of course that was just a stereotype. For all I knew, he was a brilliant pianist himself.

"I do," he agreed. "I'm Travis, by the way."

"Isobel," I replied.

He nodded and we once again fell silent, listening to the music. It was very soothing. Without my even being aware of it, my eyes drifted closed and the exhaustion from two sleepless nights began to creep over me.

I was saved from falling asleep right there on my feet by the end of the first variation. My eyes snapped open and I looked up to find Travis watching me. "I think I'm definitely going to buy this," I told him, stifling a yawn as I gestured to the CD that I had set on the counter.

"Cool." He crossed the space toward the register and picked up the case as I fished a twenty out of my wallet and set it down. "It will make a good...birthday present?" he guessed, his eyes focused on the screen of his register.

"Not a birthday present," I corrected. "A…'just because' present."

He nodded and stole a glance at me. "So this _friend_ is actually a _boyfriend_?"

I blinked, taken off guard by the question. "Uh, not exactly?" I blurted. Now I was getting questioned by complete _strangers_ about my relationship with Edward? What the hell?

"But you want him to be," Travis pressed.

I gave him a hard look, trying to figure out why he was asking. He flashed me his grin in response. "I have a reason for wanting to know," he assured me.

"And what is that?" I wondered.

He leaned forward across the counter like he was going to tell me a secret. "I'm trying to decide whether you're single enough that I can ask you out."

I felt my face instantly go crimson and my mouth dropped open in shock. "Uh - wha?"

It made me feel _slightly_ better that his cheeks were also a bit red. He took my twenty and opened the register to get my six cents of change. I continued trying to gather my scattered thoughts as he put my CD into a bag and tore off my receipt, but they scattered all over again when he turned it over and wrote something on the back, and then held it up to show me.

It was his name and phone number.

He shrugged, a crooked smile pulling at one corner of his mouth, reminding me again of a certain not-exactly-a-boyfriend of mine. "If things don't work out with this friend of yours, maybe you can give me a call. If they do, well, he's a lucky guy."

I didn't even try to respond, but I mechanically reached out and took the bag with my CD, receipt and change when he held it out to me.

"Have a good night," he told me.

I nodded stupidly and stumbled out the door.

It was considerably darker outside than it had been when I arrived. Still unable to really think through my shock, I turned and retraced my steps through the parking lot of the bank, not paying much attention to where I was going.

This would, I decided as I walked, be a lot easier to process if I weren't so tired. I might even have found it funny. Right now, though, I just found it bewildering.

Up to this point, I had been able to more or less explain the male attention I was getting. I was new at Forks High School and, as I had pointed out to Alice, the boys there couldn't tell the difference between novelty and attractiveness. Edward was, of course, a surprise - but it wasn't outside the realm of possibility that something about me was just more attractive to him than the other girls in Forks, and that he valued whatever-it-was more than looks. I didn't think I was as different as _he_ seemed to think I was, but there was no denying that I was a bit quirky and decently above average intellectually. If he particularly valued those things, his feelings and actions more or less made sense.

That guy in the music store, though - _Travis_ \- what was his excuse? He had to be college-age, and girls much prettier, more interesting, and more awake than I was probably came in every day.

It was starting to feel like moving to Forks had awakened some kind of ancient magic that made me a magnet for the opposite sex.

That was just fantastic. Edward wasn't human and I was magicked. Or cursed? No, I decided after a bit of thought, magicked. I liked not being invisible and I liked Edward, even if some of the rest of the attention was confusing or awkward.

My last thought made me chuckle, and, feeling better, I looked around for the first time since leaving the music store...and realized I had no idea where I was.

I tried to mentally retrace my steps, but it was useless. I remembered turning to walk though the bank parking lot - like an idiot, I now realized, since I had only cut through it on my way there because I'd missed the correct turn. After that - I had just been focused on what I was thinking.

I didn't think I had, before this, been wherever I was now. On one side of me was some kind of industrial yard filled with machinery and piles of logs and bark chips. On the other was a boarded-up house sitting next to a vacant lot with a faded "for sale" sign that I could only just barely read in the gathering darkness. No cute, quaint shops. No bright blue theatres.

I was about to turn around to see if anything behind me seemed familiar when a burst of raucous laughter warned me that someone was following me. Instead of turning, I picked up my pace a little and risked a single glance back over my shoulder. There were two guys there, laughing together and swaying slightly as they walked down the street. I also caught sight of a gas station further beyond them, but it didn't help me - I didn't even remember passing it.

I took a deep breath and told myself firmly not to panic. It was unlikely that the two drunkards had anything to do with me. As soon as I found a crosswalk, I could cross the street to get away from them and, at the same time, hopefully figure out what street I was on. Then I could call Angela or Jessica - both of them had better phones than mine, with GPS and maps.

A little way ahead, I could see an intersection. There wasn't a crosswalk, but maybe that was even better - if I crossed and the two guys followed, it was more likely that they were specifically following _me_. If that turned out to be the case - well, most people, even drunk people, weren't violent. Sometimes people - more especially men - got off on simply intimidating others. Rape was more likely to be committed by someone the victim knew than by a stranger.

I knew all of these things, thanks in part to Charlie being a cop.

I also had, thanks to Charlie, a small bottle of pepper spray attached to my keyring.

Hopefully it wouldn't be needed.

I made it to the intersection and crossed after glancing both ways down the road. There were no cars coming - it seemed completely deserted. There was, thankfully, a street sign. I took note of the names and called Angela, my stomach clenching as, behind me, I heard two more sets of footsteps crossing the road.

They were following me.

"Hey, Isobel," Angela said. "Are you waiting for us already? We haven't left the department store yet, but I think we will in a - "

"That's not it," I cut her off. "I got lost after I left the music store, and I don't have a map on my phone. I know the cross streets where I'm at, though."

"Oh, okay. Let me just ask Jess for her phone…"

I waited for a moment, my mind running swiftly over what it could mean that the two men behind me were following me. The chance that they meant me real harm was still fairly low, but I no longer trusted my odds. I slipped the bag containing the CD that I was carrying into my purse, fumbling purposely in order to grab my keys without making it obvious that I was doing so. The bottle of pepper spray fit comfortably into my closed fist, and I felt a little better.

But only a little. If I had to use it -

Angela interrupted the rest of my thought. "Okay, I'm ready. Give me your cross streets."

"Marine Drive and Second Street," I replied. "I'm walking down Second."

There was a short pause as she typed in the information. "Got it," she said. "Oh, wait, there are _two_ Second Streets that intersect with Marine Drive."

I stifled a groan. "Are you _kidding_ me? Do they end up at the same place at least?"

"No…" Angela answered slowly. "One will bring you right back where you need to be, but the other turns south and becomes another street - Cherry."

I once again smothered my reaction. I didn't want the men following me to see any sign of weakness.

"If you turn around and go back to Marine Drive - "

"Not an option," I interrupted. "There are two drunk guys following me and I don't want them to think I'm lost."

"But you _are_ lost," Angela pointed out.

"They don't know that," I countered. "Statistics show that people who intend to harm others prefer their victims to be timid, confused, or otherwise vulnerable. I'm safer if I act confident. For all they know, I live down here." Well, not _here_ specifically - we were surrounded by warehouses. Surely there was a residential area _somewhere_ in this general direction, though.

"Are you sure they're following you?" Angela asked.

I wasn't _completely_ sure until that moment, when one of the guys chose to call out to me. "Hey - hey you, girl. It's not safe to walk alone at night, you know." They erupted into laughter, hushing each other uselessly.

I rolled my eyes. Menacing or not, drunk people were also dumb. "I'm pretty sure," I told Angela dryly, figuring she had probably heard him talking.

"Maybe," the guy behind me continued, getting himself under control, "you should let us walk with you."

Harassment wasn't violence, but it seemed to me that the two were working themselves up to something - probably something I wouldn't like. Ignoring them would give them an excuse to feel slighted and get angry. Of course, pepper spray was a much bigger escalation than merely ignoring them, and it was a problem that there were two of them - I couldn't be perfectly certain of getting more than one. If I got lucky, though, the other might stop to help his friend instead of chasing me. My guess was that I wanted the one who had been talking. The more vocal of the two was more likely to be in charge. Like with any animals, if you took down the leader, the rest of the pack was more likely to scatter.

"Angela," I whispered, "if you hear me screaming or if I drop the phone or anything like that, I need you to call the police and tell them where I am. I also need you to find me a way _out_ of here, no matter which Second Street I'm on."

"You want Valley Street," she squeaked immediately. "It will take you back to Marine Drive. But Isobel - "

"Thank you," I murmured, and then turned to face the two men, working to cover my fear with anger. I should be angry, after all. I had done nothing to either of them - _they_ had chosen to harass _me_.

They were both young, probably not much over 21, and the one on my left was fairly good-looking. His friend was shorter and a little overweight, with fairly long hair - but not in a nicely groomed way. He generally just looked rumpled. I guessed the better-looking guy was probably calling the shots.

"Well hey there," the guy on the left said as I glared at them.

"Leave me alone," I told him, identifying him as the one who had spoken before. Definitely the leader. "I have my friend on the phone and she'll call the police if you don't back off."

"We don't mean any harm, right?" he asked his friend, who nodded. "We're trying to help you out."

"I don't need help," I replied, popping the top off of the pepper spray I held in my fist and running my thumb along the upper part, feeling for the opening where the spray would originate. It wouldn't do me much good if I accidentally sprayed myself. Charlie had thankfully drilled me on this sort of thing - he took safety, especially my safety, pretty seriously.

The guy's smile became menacing and he took a step towards me. "Having your friend call the police doesn't do much good if you aren't here when they - "

Squealing tires cut him off as a car came careening around the corner of the intersection that we had left behind. Before the car's headlights blinded me, I caught a flash of silver. It made me think of the car the Cullens drove to school, and I wished fruitlessly that Edward were here. There was no doubt he would do whatever was needed to protect me - look at how he had jumped in to handle Mike and Tyler for me without even being asked. Whoever was driving this car had momentarily interrupted, but they didn't know me and wouldn't stop just because I was one girl facing off against two grown men alone after dark. I couldn't even jump out in front of the car to stop it - it was coming too fast. I would get run over for sure.

My hand tightened around the pepper spray, and I resolved to use it as soon as the asshole turned to face me again. He had essentially just threatened me, escalating the situation all on his own. I couldn't take the chance that he was bluffing. In a moment the car would be past us, and I knew his attention would return to me - I would have quite a surprise ready for him - and then -

But the car didn't zoom past. twenty or thirty feet away, the driver hit the brakes and threw it into the kind of perfect 180 degree spin that everyone saw on TV and pretty much no one had ever seen in real life. I stared in disbelief as the headlights spun, illuminating the surrounding warehouses. No longer blinded, I could see that the silver car didn't just _remind_ me of the one the Cullens drove, it _was_ the one the Cullens drove. And, as if in answer to my wish, I could see Edward sitting in the driver's seat as it came to a stop.

Relief crashed over me like a tidal wave, but underneath it a question I couldn't shake pounded away in my head.

 _How had he known?_

* * *

Note: In case you're wondering, I completely made up the composer whose CD Isobel bought. If someone knows a composer who actually does write variations based off Hindu mantras, though, I think it would be pretty cool.


	30. Chapter 30 A

Note: This chapter is absolutely ridiculous, and there was simply no way for me to edit the entire thing for posting today. For narrative reasons, I also can't break it up and switch to Isobel's perspective. So you're getting roughly the first half today, and the second half next Saturday. This first half is still about 8k words and covers several really important plot points that I know some of you have been waiting for, so you're not exactly getting a raw deal.

I need to put a fairly serious **Trigger Warning** on this - all of you are probably familiar with _Twilight_ and can infer which plot point might be worthy of a trigger warning, but just to be clear: **there is some substantial, non-graphic discussion of rape in this chapter, including an exploration of some of the motivations driving the man following Isobel.** _(I'm also about to launch into a small discussion right here, so skip the rest of this paragraph if you don't think you can handle that.)_ Of all Stephanie Meyer's regrettable characterization shortcuts, Lonnie's (the rapist's) has to be the worst. It isn't just lazy, it's _dangerous_. Most sexual predators do not jump out of bushes or dark alleys cackling evilly and twirling their villainous mustaches. Date rape and acquaintance rape are _massively_ more common than being accosted by a complete stranger, and, even worse, most date rape consists _primarily_ of social engineering and coercion rather than drugging, intoxication or physical violence (if you can't picture how this works, the _Always Sunny_ episode "The Gang Buys a Boat" has a scene in which Dennis lays out, very directly, one way it can be accomplished, even managing to make the usually-insensitive Mac uncomfortable). Though Isobel's would-be attacker is a stranger to her, it was _very important_ to me to make it clear that this is not the normal situation - and, sadly, we can talk about the "normal situation" for a sexual assault since the current estimate is that 1 in 6 women in the U.S. experiences an attempted or completed rape during her lifetime. Okay, I think that's all I need to say, except for the obligatory "go here if you need help": RAINN has resources to help victims, including live chat and a hotline. (All this data is, of course, U.S.-specific since that's where I live.)

One last thing: some of you are probably going to feel like Isobel is massively overreacting towards the end of the chapter and you're quite right - please remember that, given the events of the evening, her emotional resilience is not at optimum levels for the conversation they end up having.

* * *

XXX(a).

Esme rested her hand on my shoulder as the last notes of Isobel's Nocturne faded from the air. "Play it again," she urged.

"There's no time for that!" Alice called from upstairs, where she had retreated after our last round - presumably to be comforted or encouraged by Jasper. Likely he had encouraged her - at least judging by the fact that she was bringing this up _again_. In the blink of an eye, she was standing just behind Esme, her hands on her hips as she watched me. I could see her through Esme's eyes as she turned to watch; I remained resolutely facing the piano.

"I'm not going, Alice," I told her levelly. She had shown me the basis of her premonition, and it simply wasn't enough to violate Isobel's trust and privacy - one foggy image of Isobel defending Angela with a bottle of what looked like pepper spray. I had promised myself - no more following her.

I wouldn't let Alice wear me down. I would ignore the undeniable truth that what she was urging me to do was what I wanted to do anyway.

" _Please_ Edward," my sister trilled, her voice frantic - even more frantic than it had been earlier. I closed my eyes against it, but for once she didn't immediately continue. Instead, I could hear her looking ahead, reading my probable objections to her arguments, searching for a way to convince me. Damn her.

When she finally did continue, her voice was lower. "It's not like her date with Tyler," she said. "There's something _wrong_ in Port Angeles - _someone_ wrong. I don't know - I don't know the person, so I can't see him - or - or her, I guess." _And it's not_ very _likely that any of the girls will be in danger,_ she went on non-verbally, flipping, once again, through the dim possibilities she could see for me, _but anytime any of them are in a group smaller than three, those girls are in_ some _danger._

She had read my possible and probable reactions well. I bent over the piano and buried my hands in my hair. "It's not right, Alice," I muttered. "I can't follow her around just because she _might_ get into trouble. I can't...be her jailor." In spite of my words, Alice's change in tactic was having the desired effect on me. Though I was clinging to the principle that had kept me away from Isobel's house for more than a week, I was beginning to wonder if Isobel's safety - and, as Alice had so astutely pointed out, _more_ than just Isobel's safety - weren't more important than that. The excuse that it wasn't just about her was tempting.

Esme rubbed my back, her thoughts concerned - both for me _and_ for Isobel.

"You don't have to follow her every move," Alice argued. "Just - stay close enough to check in with them once in a while." She took a breath and hammered the point home. "It's not just Isobel, you know. She - and Angela - are just the most likely. But it _could_ be any of them."

"I think you should go, Edward," Esme murmured.

I finally turned to look at Alice. "Are you going to come with me? Our abilities together will work a lot better than mine alone."

"Of _course_ ," she replied impatiently.

I blinked, momentarily taken aback - Alice had been looking forward to getting the mail today for the last week. She had custom-ordered a rose made of gold and garnet to accent the spot where the strap on Rosalie's dress met the bodice. Garnet was Rose's favorite stone, and Alice couldn't wait to surprise her with it.

If she was willing to give that up - she really must be worried.

"Alright," I sighed, rubbing my forehead. "We'll go."

I expected Alice to squeal and bounce as she usually did when things went her way, but she just let out a relieved sigh, further confirming to me just how real her fear was. "We really should go _now_. It's already after one, and I'm not quite sure when things start getting dangerous. After dark for sure...but maybe before that, too."

"And how, exactly, do you intend for us to rescue anyone before it gets dark?" I snapped, gesturing towards the window, where the sun was currently shining. It dimmed again briefly as a cloud passed by, but there weren't nearly enough clouds to guarantee our safety should we need to do anything outdoors.

She smiled in reply to my glower and shrugged. "Run the bad guys over with the car?"

I supposed it was a backup plan. I left her to get my keys and jacket, still irritated - but more with the situation than with her.

Alice gave Jasper strict instructions to listen for the mail truck and retrieve her gift for Rosalie before anyone else had a chance to find out about it, and then the two of us were in the Volvo, flying down the road towards Port Angeles.

Going the speed limit, Port Angeles was about an hour away. I never went the speed limit, of course - running or driving. Usually it took me about half an hour to get there driving. I intended to shave at least five minutes off of that time today, and, if traffic turned out to be light, it might be closer to ten. My Aston Martin or Tesla could have covered the distance more quickly, but the former was a little cramped for more than two, and Rosalie had the latter in her shop to remove the dents and scratches I had accrued while racing. It was a measure of how much her attitude towards me had improved that she had even offered, and I had no intention of reminding her of anything she would rather forget by asking if I could have my car back for the evening.

Besides, if our backup plan was running people over with cars, I would much rather be driving the Volvo.

Alice and I were silent for the first ten or fifteen minutes of the drive, both wrapped up in considering the probability of future dangers. Finally, though, she put her visions out of her mind and turned to face me. "I know it was just for our strategy to get invited to the movie tonight, but ever since you mentioned a _Lord of the Rings_ marathon, I've been thinking that we should do it."

"Again?" I asked, mildly amused. Jasper had been annoyed last time because it robbed him of Alice for a little more than twelve hours.

"Well, I was thinking that maybe I should read the books to Jasper first. Then he won't get lost and could join us." Jasper wasn't big on sitting around and reading, but he was happy to listen to whatever Alice wanted to read to him while he carved his wooden figures or sketched in his journal. While some people kept diaries, Jasper sketched. Not to remember, of course - we had perfect recall. He didn't sketch what he saw so much as what he felt about what he saw. I had a set of pen and ink drawings he had made for and about me hanging on my wall. Jasper's generous view of me made them priceless in my eyes - as well as deeply embarrassing. He gave me too much credit for realizing the ideal I continuously sought. Even so, they were the centerpiece of my wall art. I never wanted him to doubt how highly I valued both his talent and his good opinion.

In any case, Jasper was allowed to watch movies with us if they were based on books that Alice had read to him. "That's a good plan," I told her. "In the meantime, we could have a marathon of movies based on books that you've read to him since our last marathon."

She cast a coy sidelong glance my way. "You could invite Isobel."

The thought cheered me for a moment, until I remembered how much I needed to tell her. "If she's still speaking to me after Monday and - beyond."

"She's going to be fine Monday," Alice told me, rolling her eyes. "I only can't tell about later than that because you haven't made any choices about it yet."

"Let me just get through Monday," I grated out.

"Edward, I'm telling you this for your own good: you are a massive drama queen." She ignored the glare I shot her. "It's a good thing you fell in love with Isobel - if anyone has a chance of making you less melodramatic, it's definitely her. Once you get everything sorted out, of course."

" _If_ we get everything sorted out," I muttered at her. She pretended not to hear me.

Alice: ever the hopeless optimist.

On the outskirts of Port Angeles, Alice directed me to a shaded, grassed-over driveway where we would be safe both from errant sunbeams and interruption, while still being close enough to keep a mental eye on Isobel and her friends.

The first thing I did was check in, finding Angela's "voice" and watching through her eyes as Isobel commented on what she was wearing. _"I like the cut of that, but the color isn't wowing me,"_ she said, looking over the dress her friend was wearing with a critical eye. The color was a lovely midnight blue that shimmered to something peacock-colored in the light, but I had to agree with Isobel - the color would have looked better on her than it did on Angela.

"Dark blue," I murmured to Alice.

"What's that?" she asked.

"Isobel's color is dark blue," I answered, skipping out of Angela's head as she returned to the dressing room. I sighed, realizing that there were no safe eyes to look through just now - June and Jessica were also changing, and the saleswoman who was attending them was off hunting down another size of something.

Alice was smiling at me as I returned to myself. "Are the girls making Isobel dress up?" she asked. Her smile faltered. "I wish I were there."

"No," I reassured her. "Angela was trying on a dress that reminded me of what Isobel wore the night of her date, and it only just occurred to me to tell you."

She stuck her tongue out at me. "Some brother _you_ are."

I held up my hands in surrender. "The fact that you would want to dress up my - Isobel - the way you do Rosalie didn't cross my mind. I was thinking about other things." Perfect recall didn't mean perfectly _timed_ recall.

"They're all safe, then?" Alice asked, letting both the subject and my near slip-up go.

"They are," I agreed. "And they seem to be having fun. I don't think anyone is going anywhere - at least not for a while." It had been good to see Isobel, even just briefly and through other eyes. "I missed her," I sighed.

Alice patted my arm. "I know. You'll be with her again soon. In the meantime, we can decide what movie adaptations to group together to make a good marathon."

It was as good a distraction as any, so I shrugged and focused my attention on my sister as she mentally went through the list of books she had read to Jasper over the last six months.

I let myself check in with Isobel and the other girls about once an hour, but all of my stays were, by necessity, brief. Her friends were continually changing in and out of dresses, and even the saleswoman wasn't necessarily a safe alternative as she zipped them up and helped them into and out of the bulkier and more delicate options.

Alice paused to check the future whenever I looked to make sure that they were still together, but her visions didn't clear. All her vague possibilities remained just that - vague and not very probable. Still, we maintained our vigilance. I didn't need to be reminded that the danger became greater after dark, which would come early at this time of year.

Everything was still fine when I checked on them just before three. The sun was sinking toward a cloud bank in the west, promising an early dusk. On the whole, I was glad - even if the danger increased, my ability to act increased at a much faster rate. I mentally urged it on and went back to my conversation with Alice.

My comfort evaporated about forty minutes later when I looked in again. It was early, but I was getting antsy as the sun became increasingly shrouded in clouds. Part of me wanted to "accidentally" run into them early. It was one way to keep them out of danger, even if it also violated my principled determination not to follow Isobel more than strictly necessary.

At first the more obvious change of location obscured a more important change - the girls had left the boutique where they had been shopping and, I gathered from their conversation and thoughts, were headed toward the only department store Port Angeles boasted. None of them were looking at Isobel and she seemed uncharacteristically quiet, but they were discussing whether Angela needed to wear heels with her dress - while Angela worried silently over both being taller than her date and whether her mother would _let_ her wear heels - and it didn't seem like the kind of conversation that would interest Isobel much. I waited impatiently for one of them to look at, think of, or speak to her.

It was only when I felt Alice's hand on my sleeve that I realized that there were only three participants in the conversation because there were only three participants _present_.

Isobel was gone.

She was gone _alone_.

Why _the hell_ was she _alone_? I turned furiously to Alice with her lying visions.

"I don't know!" she wailed before I could say a word. "I can't see the past! It was - it was only _likely_ that Angela would go with her. Something changed!"

"Where is she now?" I roared. Without Angela, how - how _in the hell_ was I supposed to follow her? How could I _protect_ her if I couldn't _find_ her?

"A store," Alice whispered. "A music store. But...I think she's already leaving. Or if not, she will be very soon."

I closed my hands around the steering wheel carefully. "Where is it?" I asked tightly, consciously controlling my temper. This wasn't Alice's fault. If it weren't for her, I wouldn't even _be_ here.

Alice had her phone out and was typing rapidly. I had never shopped for music in Port Angeles. Small towns weren't known for their quality or selection. Most of my music I bought online, and when I wanted to find something rare or special, I went to Seattle. I threw the car into reverse and backed out of the driveway.

"It's not too far - just a few miles from here," she said, sounding relieved. I glanced at the sky. The sun was well and truly behind the clouds now, which were getting thicker and somewhat ominous as they rolled in from the west.

I threw the car into gear sped off through the narrow streets as Alice fed me directions. There were a surprising number of people about for a winter evening - the sun must have drawn them from home. I cursed it and them. In my frantic hurry, they were a nuisance, slowing my progress towards the store and my Isobel.

After what seemed eons, we made it to the store and I hurriedly parked, not caring that I was blocking the driveway of a bank next door. "Is she here?" I asked Alice.

"No," Alice said, "and I'm not sure which way she went. When I looked, she seemed a little dazed and her path was unclear."

Inside the music store, I could see a clerk moving around, his thoughts lingering on the dark-haired beauty whom I sought. She had certainly been there, and not too long ago. She had also caught yet _another_ man's attention. He was wrong about her, though, assigning words like _sweet_ and _shy_ to her wide brown eyes and easy blush. I wanted break his nose.

And then he began hoping she would use the number he had given her, and I revised my desire: I wanted to smash his _skull_.

Alice brought me back, catching my arm in a tight grip and giving me a stern shake. "He isn't the one," she growled at me. "Damn it, Edward, whatever he's thinking, it can _wait_!"

I glanced at her guiltily and began casting about for Isobel's scent. "He gave her his number," I muttered.

Alice's only answer was an exasperated shake of her head.

We started by going east because, if Isobel were rejoining her friends, that was the direction she _should_ have taken. There was no trace of her scent after a few dozen feet, though, so we retraced our steps, trying west and circling the little music store until we caught wind of her, headed, incongruously, north through the bank parking lot whose driveway I was blocking.

"What is she _doing_?" I demanded, my fingers tangling themselves in my hair.

"I don't know, and I don't think she does, either," Alice sighed. "Her future is still cloudy, but...she's definitely walking toward danger and not away from it."

Her words stoked my temper nearly beyond endurance and I erupted into snarls, wanting desperately to break something.

"You're not helping," Alice snapped. "I'll follow her scent and figure out which direction she was headed. Meanwhile you can listen around to see if anyone has noticed her or if you can find someone who seems particularly dangerous." She stalked off without waiting for my assent.

How would she feel if it were Jasper? I wanted to yell the question after her, but I knew that it was good that at least one of us was thinking clearly.

I obeyed Alice's order and spread my awareness out as far as I could, not, at this moment, trying to filter anything out. A human mind would not have been able to deal with so much input and likely would have snapped, but I could let my attention drift across the surface of it, allowing myself to be drawn to faces and thoughts that seemed as though they might be relevant.

No one seemed to have seen Isobel, but there were several bars in the area and most of the nearby malice was concentrated there. As people with grievances - real or imagined - got drunk, the intoxication could either bring buried feelings to the surface or relax the impulse control that held feelings already on the surface in check. Most of it, I knew, would not be acted on. That didn't tell me which feelings _would_ be acted on, though. There simply wasn't time to examine dozens of minds individually, looking for the small handful that _might_ act, and then following each to see if the individual crossed paths with the girl I sought.

"Anything?" Alice asked as she returned.

I shook my head. "More like too much - too many people and too much noise."

"She got up to the next block and turned west."

"Why would she go _west_?" I demanded, pulling at my hair again. Her friends were _east_ of here. What was she thinking?

"I can't tell you," Alice reminded me.

"We have to follow her," I growled.

"Not on foot," my sister cautioned. "You're too on-edge and I don't trust you not to do something to expose us if you catch someone pursuing her while we're on foot. The car may not be faster in the _absolute_ sense, but it's much faster in the legitimate, keeping-up-a-pretense-of-humanness sense."

"Fine," I replied shortly, irritated but unwilling to waste more time arguing about it.

We returned to the car and drove west. Now that I knew which direction Isobel had gone, I concentrated my attention that direction, leaving control of the car to my internal autopilot. Beside me, I could sense Alice scanning the future once again.

"Oh no," she groaned. _He's found her,_ she thought at me. _Everything just got a lot firmer._

" _Where?_ " I howled.

"I don't know!" she yelled back. "Somewhere near the industrial part of town - he and his friend are drunk."

There was only one bar that was both nearby and significantly west of the music store. It was one block south of us, though, and we had just passed it. I hung an abrupt left and then, a second later, another, ignoring the blaring of a horn as I ran a stop sign. Maybe Isobel had realized her mistake and was trying to return east again? The section wasn't industrial, though…

"Angela," Alice gasped. "She's going to call Angela!"

I slammed on my brakes and pulled over, earning myself another horn blast from the irritated driver behind me. Angela was...still at the department store. I found her easily - she was trying to help Jessica decide between two necklaces. "We should have followed on foot," I growled at Alice as I waited for the phone call.

She patted my arm with vague sympathy, too focused on the future to pay much attention to me.

"Second Street and Marine Drive," Alice breathed. I immediately pulled away from the curb, cutting someone off and getting both a blast from their horn and middle finger this time. First Street, where the bar was located, was a one-way street going east, so I continued east, not wanting to push my luck any further by driving the wrong direction on a one-way.

Angela's phone rang as Alice's brow furrowed. "What the _hell_?" my sister swore, surprising me a little. "There are _two_ West Second Streets in Port Angeles! Why would they _do_ that?"

She abruptly dived for her phone, which she had dropped into her purse. _I can figure out which one it is on Streetview._

There was no point in interrupting her search, and I felt a little more in control now that I had _some_ direction, so I listened in on the conversation between Angela and Isobel.

" _Hey, Isobel,"_ Angela said. " _Are you waiting for us already? We haven't left the department store yet, but I think we will in a - "_

I sighed as I heard Isobel's voice. It sounded tense, but not panicked. " _That's not it,"_ she interrupted. " _I got lost after I left the music store, and I don't have a map on my phone. I know the cross streets where I'm at, though."_

" _Oh, okay. Let me just ask Jess for her phone…"_ Angela said, trailing off as she touched Jessica's shoulder to get her attention. Beside me, Alice tapped her fingers impatiently, waiting for her phone to load the area she wanted. I, meanwhile, turned south onto Oak Street and from there onto _one_ of the Second Streets as Angela continued the conversation. " _Okay, I'm ready. Give me your cross streets."_

"Got it!" Alice squealed as I zoomed past another intersection, keeping watch for any human figures that might be Isobel or her pursuers. "It's the other Second, and you probably should have turned back there," she told me. "You'll have to go up to Marine Drive now."

Angela and Isobel were still talking, but either Isobel wasn't telling Angela everything or she didn't realize just how much danger she was in. I needed to know exactly what was happening, so I cast my mind about again now that the scope of my search had been very effectively narrowed.

It was scarcely a moment before my mind latched onto the one whose attention Isobel had so thoroughly captured. His thoughts were vile, leaving me feeling dirty just for having touched them. What I found there left me grinding my teeth in frustrated anger. Usually he didn't stalk girls on the street, no. _Usually_ his victims were his dates. He chose quiet, uncertain girls who had been socialized not to stand up for themselves, pushing through their subtle ways of saying "no" to his sexual advances. His pleasure was two-fold: there was the fear they displayed in the moment, not wanting the things he did to them but too timid and, perhaps, too afraid of actual violence to give a firm denial. Afterward, he savored the knowledge that the girls would blame themselves for the encounter and would likely drown themselves in shame and guilt, uncertain whether what had happened even counted as rape without a definitive "no" being uttered. As an additional bonus, none of them would ever go to the police, because what could they say? That they had been disengaged or squirmed with discomfort beneath him? No one would indict him, let alone convict him, for "misinterpreting" signals like that.

Tonight, though, he had misjudged the girl whom he had taken out. She had dumped a glass of water on his head and stomped out as soon as he had first started putting pressure on her. He had retreated to a bar to drink with his friend, and then had run into Isobel by pure chance on his way home. Isobel didn't look much like the girl who had humiliated him, but her hair was similarly dark and about the same length, and their builds weren't entirely different. Tonight, feeling a girl squirm under him in half-suppressed discomfort wasn't enough; he wanted revenge and violence, and he had chosen _my Isobel_ as his stand-in.

My rage built, burning hotter and hotter - until a single cold certainty enveloped and smothered the heat.

I would kill him.

I careened onto Marine Drive, not even bothering to stop and check for traffic. The road was absolutely deserted.

On the phone, Isobel was giving Angela instructions for which indicators warranted calling the police. My foot nudged the gas petal down a little further, but Alice elbowed me in the side.

"You're not going to make the corner at this speed," she warned.

I let up, even though Isobel had turned to face her pursuers. Usually her defiance would have disqualified her as a victim for the devil of a man she faced, but now - angry and drunk as he was, it only served to remind him more than ever of the woman who had snubbed him. His friend was another matter - he actually took a step back, frightened by Isobel's confidence and realizing for the first time that the two of them might land in real trouble.

They had no idea.

I took the corner onto the _correct_ Second Street at the maximum speed the car could handle, actually feeling two of the tires lift slightly off the road. It didn't matter - the group was illuminated by my headlights now. The two men turned to look - the devil irritated by the interruption while his friend fought off a panic attack - but all my attention was focused on Isobel. She appeared determined rather than frightened, her cheeks reddened by an emotion that, for once, had nothing to do with embarrassment.

"She has that bottle of pepper spray," Alice murmured. "Look at her hand. She's getting ready to use it."

I didn't look. I trusted Alice to know what she was talking about and it didn't matter now. Isobel had no need to use her feeble weapon. _I_ would be her weapon.

I hit the brakes and jerked the steering wheel around, throwing the car into a spin. Alice didn't even blink. _Edward,_ she thought at me as we spun, laying one hand on my sleeve, _I know what you_ want _to do to them, but you can't. Isobel -_

The reality of her unfinished thought crashed over me. Of course. Isobel. I groaned aloud as the car came to a stop. How could I possibly act on my fantasies of mayhem and slaughter with her standing right there, watching everything? The balance of my sins was already heavy with more than a decade of crimes - the only reassurance I could offer Isobel was that they were all in the past. _Far_ in the past, from her perspective. How could I return to my former habits now, and right in front of her?

I couldn't.

I didn't even dare touch her would-be attackers for fear that I would lose control of myself. Besides, I had seen no evidence that Isobel was a fundamentally violent person. Even blacked eyes and broken noses might leave her more traumatized than reassured. My resolve shifted.

I could at least scare them. They deserved _that_ much.

All this passed through my thoughts in the briefest second of hesitation - probably not noticeable to the humans outside. With my mind made up, I flung the door open and left the car, stalking toward the drunken devil and his wretched friend just a little faster and with a little more fluidity than a human could manage. I could see my face reflected in their minds - a terrifying mask of rage, with yellow eyes that caught the dim light and glinted with malevolence. Unsurprisingly, both began backing away slowly.

Behind me, Isobel was still on the phone with Angela. "Edward is here," she told the other girl, sounding more shocked than pleased.

I could hear Angela's response clearly enough, asking her what I was doing there.

"I don't know," Isobel replied.

"Hey," the devil's wretched friend squeaked, "we didn't - " _Oh God, he's her boyfriend and he thinks we were going to rape her or kill her and he looks like he's going to kill_ us _and this wasn't even my idea, why did I even agree to be here?_

The babble of his thoughts was almost overwhelming, but a moment of my focused attention both cut off the rest of what he meant to say and froze his already-panicked mind with abject terror. I spent an additional moment studying the two men the way a hawk might study its prey before ripping into it.

"Run," I advised the two in the low rumble, hardly loud enough to be heard.

They heard me, though, their senses straining for whatever sign I might give them. Run is exactly what they did - hearts pounding and lungs laboring with fears that neither would have been able to name. Neither had enough self-possession left to navigate the uneven sidewalk with any finesse - they tripped repeatedly, so desperate to get away that they didn't even wait to stand fully again before running on. Both would have scraped hands and knees in the morning. I was glad. It was so much less than they deserved.

"Look," Isobel told Angela, "I'll call you back in a few minutes once I know more. I'm fine, though. Okay?"

Angela agreed reluctantly, and Isobel immediately hung up.

I spent a moment watching the two men retreat, trying to smooth my expression into something that wouldn't similarly terrify Isobel before turning to face her.

She was staring at me with wide eyes, looking more frightened than she had mere moments before when she was facing down her pursuers. A reaction in the aftermath of danger, or fear of me? "Isobel," I murmured, trying to make my voice gentle for her.

Her reaction answered my question. She didn't respond in words, but dropped everything she was holding and crossed the space between us with steps that began slow and then accelerated to a near run. She stumbled on the last stride, crashing into me and throwing her arms around my waist - whether to save herself from falling or because that was what she had intended all along, I wasn't certain. In either case, she didn't let go. I wrapped my arms around her in return, steadying her. She was trembling and I could hear her breath coming in gasps, but when I bent to peek at her face, she didn't appear to be crying.

Alice, in the meantime, emerged slowly from the car. _I'll be right back_ , she told me, and the intentions uppermost in her mind actually made me smile. This entire district seemed to be deserted, so there was no one other than a couple of traumatized drunks to notice if she broke a few rules. It wasn't as good as killing the devil and his wretched bastard of a friend - not even as good as beating them - but Alice might manage to convince them both that they never wanted to so much as look at another woman again.

I was too busy with the girl in my arms to give my sister's little warning display more than cursory attention, but to all appearances she managed it well. The fact that she was so tiny seemed to make the experience particularly terrifying for the devil of the pair - he was accustomed to knowing that his size and strength made him the physical superior of practically any woman he came across. Alice left him whimpering alone in a soggy heap of sweat, urine and tears, his friend having wisely abandoned him at the first sign of Alice's uncanny powers.

Isobel, meanwhile, showed no inclination to remove herself from my embrace. I asked her a few questions about how she was feeling, but she only responded to yes or no questions with a nod or a shake of her head, and to all others with a shrug. Tremors continued to run through her body at irregular intervals and I kept expecting her to start crying, but she didn't. After ten or twelve questions, I gave up asking and instead turned my attention to trying to soothe her, running my fingers gently through her beautiful hair.

It occurred to me rather belatedly, as the scent from her hair intensified the burning in my throat - up to this point disregarded by me - that two days away from her had, once again, made me more sensitive to the way she smelled. There was, however, a curious lack of desire to act on my pain - it existed and, intellectually, I understood how to alleviate it. There was, however, a disconnect between my knowledge and my desire to act on it. I bent and kissed Isobel's hair lightly, breathing her in as I did. It seemed to set my throat on fire, but for the first time I was truly conscious of the fact that her scent, absent the pain it caused me, was _pleasant_. I didn't - couldn't - trust that the change heralded a profound shift in the danger I represented, but for this moment, when Isobel needed me, I would take whatever respite was available.

Alice returned from her self-imposed mission just as Isobel began to relax. She actually looked up at the sound of Alice's footsteps and offered her a wan smile. Alice returned it without stopping, and then came back a moment later carrying Isobel's purse and keys.

Isobel sighed and released me - reluctantly, I thought and hoped. I knew that I had trouble letting go of her. She accepted her things, dropping her keys back into her purse, and then turned to look at me. "That's twice now that you've rescued me," she said in a low voice.

I shuddered - both times had been entirely too close. "Let's not try for three, agreed?" I requested, perhaps a little too severely. I wasn't certain my sanity would survive a third time intact, though.

She looked up at me, her displeased frown and the flash of her eyes making her look more like herself. "I wasn't _trying_ the last two times," she snapped.

"I know," I allowed. While this situation had included some negligence on her part, Tyler's car had been a freak accident. She clearly hadn't been putting herself in danger on purpose either time, though.

"Hmm," Alice said, "we had better get going." _Angela will be calling back soon,_ she continued silently for my benefit, _so we need a story, and there will be a car coming in about two minutes. We shouldn't be here blocking the road._

Isobel nodded in response to Alice's spoken words, her eyebrows drawing together in a look of thoughtful concentration. I wondered, as always, what it was she was thinking about.

We all got into the car, Alice taking the back seat so that Isobel could sit next to me - or so that I could sit next to her. Or both.

As Alice had predicted, Isobel's phone rang as I was pulling out onto Marine Drive. She pulled it out of her purse. "Hey, Angela," she sighed.

Alice and I exchanged a glance. _You'd better handle this_ , she thought at me. _And head for the driveway where we were earlier. It's a good spot for...whatever._

"Yes, I'm fine," Isobel said in reply to a question from her friend. I held out my hand and made a peremptory "give it here" gesture. "What?" Isobel asked me and then, in response to Angela's confused reaction, said, "Not you - I think Edward wants to talk to you?"

I sighed and simply plucked the phone from her hand. "Angela," I said, ignoring Isobel's inarticulate protest.

Angela's nervous swallow in response to the sound of my voice was audible. "Ed-Edward?" she replied.

"Isobel is fine," I told her. "She's with me and Alice."

"But - " Angela began, and then realized whom it was she was about to question. "I mean - that's good. But, um, we were planning on going to dinner?"

"That's fine - go on ahead. There's no need to wait for us," I told her. "We'll join you in - maybe twenty minutes. Half an hour at the latest. Isobel is a little shaken and I want to make sure she has a chance to calm down first."

Isobel raised one eyebrow at me on hearing that, but didn't protest.

"Well...okay, Edward," Angela agreed hesitantly. "She's really okay? What was going on, anyway?"

"We'll tell you all about when we get there," I promised smoothly. "Until then - please make sure the three of you stick together. It isn't always safe to walk alone after dark, even in Port Angeles."

"Of course. Well, see you in a little bit, I guess."

"In a little bit," I agreed, and hung up, handing Isobel her phone again.

"I need to calm down?" she asked acerbically as she tucked it away.

I let out a puff of air. "I don't know," I replied. "Do you?"

The defensive irritation faded from her expression as she gave it a moment of real thought. "I don't think so. I think I'm okay now. I just - " She paused, her face scrunching up in distaste.

"Don't feel like you need to defend your feelings to me," I told her. "As far as I'm concerned, your self-possession is remarkable and perhaps a little frightening."

"Not frightening," Alice chirped, chiming in for the first time, "just remarkable."

Isobel nodded. "I don't think I need to calm down, but - " she hesitated, and Alice caught my eye in the rearview mirror.

 _She has questions_ , Alice told me, her mental voice laced with overtones of "you should have known that."

I tried to imagine how our rescue must look to Isobel and stifled an exasperated sigh. I had been so focused on saving her that I hadn't thought - of course she had questions. I wondered if I could avoid answering them - or if that would just make everything worse. What about my carefully-considered timeline?

Isobel's eyes were darting between us when I looked at her again. "What's wrong?" I asked her.

She shook her head slowly, and I glanced back to share another look with Alice, who shrugged philosophically, as unenlightened as I was.

"Oh God," Isobel squeaked, "you can read each other's minds."

How did she - ? No, I realized, she didn't _know_ anything - she had just put together a lot of context clues and come out to an answer _frighteningly_ near the truth. I hit the brakes and pulled over to the side of the road. Forget the driveway - it looked like we needed to talk _now_. Alice's eyes were wide in the rearview mirror, offering me no guidance, so I turned to Isobel. She was chewing on her bottom lip.

"What makes you say that?" I asked her carefully, interpreting her action as a nervous gesture. Perhaps I would be able to persuade her that she was imagining things.

Alice abruptly erupted into laughter in the back seat. "Oh Edward," she giggled, "stop trying to _manage_ the girl and talk to her like a real person."

I turned to stare at her in disbelief. Weren't we on the same team here? " _This was your idea_ ," I hissed at her.

"I know," she agreed easily, still snickering, "but, _jeez_ , even the best plans sometimes have to be scrapped. Who could have foreseen _this_? Apparently not me."

There was a sharp intake of breath from Isobel. "So you guys can also see the future," she whispered.

"You're close," Alice said, " _remarkably_ close. But your assumptions are too general."

"Too general?" Isobel repeated in confusion.

I sighed. Even when she was trying to be straightforward, Alice too often thought like a Sphinx. " _Alice_ can see the future," I explained to the bewildered girl beside me. " _I_ can read minds."

Isobel sat bolt upright. " _All_ minds?" she demanded, her voice hard.

"All I've encountered," I confirmed, "except - "

She abruptly pushed herself back up against the door as though trying to get away from me. "No. No. No, no, no, you do _not_ have my permission for that! These are _my_ thoughts and you can stay the _hell_ out of my head!"

I blinked at her vehemence, momentarily rendered speechless.

"Except yours," Alice finished for me.

Isobel turned to look at her. "What?"

"Edward can read the minds of everyone he's encountered, except yours," she explained. "Also," she sighed, "while he has a fair degree of discretion regarding whom he listens to, he can't ever entirely turn it off."

I nodded, still feeling a little stunned by Isobel's reaction.

There was a short pause while she digested Alice's explanation, and then she let out a shaky breath. "Okay. Sorry." The apology was grudging, and she sent a dark look up at me. "You really can't read my mind?"

"I really can't," I heard myself say.

"Good," she muttered. "That's good."

I found myself starting to get a bit annoyed. "It wasn't good this evening. It was _very_ inconvenient considering that you were lost and _I couldn't find you_."

Her eyes flashed again and just like that she was instantly ready to continue the fight. "I don't like people taking things I don't want to give. That goes for my body and it goes about _a hundredfold more_ for my mind. My thoughts are _mine_ and I'll give them out where and how I please." Her eyes fell to her hands, lying quietly in her lap, and she frowned. "If you don't have control of it, though…" she muttered, chewing on her lip again. "I don't know."

"Alice can see your future," I told her, still resenting her overreaction, though I suspected that it was mostly because it was _me_ she was reacting to.

Alice stuck her tongue out at me. "Jerk."

"But only what I'll do and say, right?" Alice and I both nodded. "I mean, that's still not amazing - it definitely cuts into my privacy more than I'm strictly comfortable with - but it's not the same as _stealing my thoughts_."

"It's not stealing!" I growled. "I don't _take_ them. They're still in the possession of whomever they belong to."

"Right!" she growled right back. "So by that logic nothing is being taken from me if I'm raped! I still have the parts that were violated, after all. And don't you dare tell me that it's not like rape because the person on the receiving end isn't aware of it. Raping someone who isn't conscious of what's happening _is still rape_."

We glared at each other for a moment, until Alice cleared her throat delicately. "Two things," she said as we turned to look at her. "First, this is a moot point because Edward can't read your mind. Second, this is a moot point because he can't turn it off. And, actually, third, not everyone would share your view, so you don't need to get upset about it for other people. Oh, and fourth, Edward finds most people _incredibly_ dull. Really, if there's a violation happening here, it's happening on _both_ ends, and fate or the universe or God or whatever is the perpetrator."

Isobel dropped her eyes and wrapped her arms around herself, going silent again, this time for several minutes as she thought over Alice's arguments. "Yeah, I guess you're right," she said at last. "Sorry, Edward. Really this time." She held her hand out to me. "Forgive me?"

I contemplated her offering for a moment, wondering if she was only willing to touch me out of guilt. My flesh was so cold and she had been shivering earlier - though that mostly been in reaction to her confrontation with her pursuers. It wasn't the first time she had offered to touch me - or had simply _done_ it -

She was starting to look a bit hurt, so I made up my mind quickly and brushed her fingers lightly with my own. As it had when she grabbed my hand on Wednesday afternoon, the warmth of her skin sent a sweet shockwave through me. "Of course I forgive you," I told her.

She turned her gaze to Alice. "I'd like to talk about the whole seeing my future thing later," she said, "but maybe not tonight?"

Alice shrugged. "Or I could just foresee the whole conversation, as long as you're certain you want to have it. That's one limitation that I have - if an outcome hinges on a decision that hasn't been made yet, my visions are vague, giving me a bunch of possibilities with the most probable showing up the most clearly. So - "

"Hold on," Isobel interrupted, her voice excited. "wouldn't that mean that your foresight or whatever definitively answers the question of whether humans have free will?"

"Uhhh, well…" Alice said, "you know, I've never really thought of that. I guess it's at least pretty good evidence! There are other forms of uncertainty, of course. Like I would be no help at _all_ in trying to predict quantum phenomena."

"That is _so cool_."

I tried to smother my derogatory snort. Why was Alice's gift "so cool" while mine was some kind of abomination?

"We'll definitely discuss this later," Isobel went on, taking no notice of my jealousy. "But, um, you can tell me about whatever conversation we're going to have later, too."

"Sure," Alice chirped, pleased to be able to talk over her ability to see the future with someone who wasn't already intimately familiar with it.

"There's one more thing we should probably talk about," Isobel said.

I glanced back at Alice and saw her mouth form a little "oh" of surprise, and wondered just what Isobel intended to ask about. What more could there possibly be?

"I know how you found me and all now," Isobel went on, not waiting for us to ask, "or, at least, I can guess - but, um, we haven't really addressed the fact that...you aren't human?"

Oh, I thought, _that_ "more."

* * *

Note: The thing with Alice reading to Jasper is based on me reading to my husband. I swear he reads code more easily and quickly than he does simple, normal writing, so if I ever want him to read anything, I have to read _to_ him. Unlike Jasper, who of course can't sleep, my husband quite regularly nods off while I'm reading, though.


	31. Chapter 30 B

Note: As I'm sure you've noticed, this chapter is late.

It was really a perfect storm of competing obligations: a friend whom I hadn't seen in _years_ visiting from another state, a housewarming party for another friend, and then an announcement from my brother that he got accepted into the graduate program he applied to (yay!) - which of course necessitated another party. And guess who's not in classes right now and has time to plan the menu and cook half the dishes for a party?

If you said "NeedAMuse," you'd be exactly right.

Not helping the situation was the length of this chapter (technically the second way-more-than-half of the chapter). Honestly, this is so long that if I ever rewrite it, I'll go back and carve out a chapter with Isobel's perspective in the middle, and then switch back to Edward's. I didn't realize how bad it would be when I was mentally mapping it out, though.

When will I be updating again? Uhhhh...that's a good question. Definitely by a week from Saturday (additional siblings making it into grad programs permitting; luckily I only have one more and she hasn't applied to any grad programs that I know of).

* * *

XXX(b).

Isobel really shouldn't have been able to surprise me, not after the entirety of the preceding conversation, but I still found myself staring at her.

"Come _on_ ," she huffed, sounding annoyed. "That wasn't a difficult conclusion to reach once I was thinking with my brain instead of habit and cultural conditioning. I do know a _little_ basic biology, and humans are incapable of both being as cold as you are and remaining ambulatory. So what are you? Aliens? Androids? Alien androids?"

She was so far off the mark that I smiled - until I remembered that I would need to put her back _on_ the mark. I ran my hand through my hair and looked at Alice for guidance, but she was still watching Isobel.

"We aren't aliens and we aren't any kind of artificial intelligence. All of us used to be human," I began, and then stopped, not knowing how to continue.

Alice glanced at me and rolled her eyes. "We're vampires," she told Isobel.

"Vampires," Isobel repeated, looking torn between laughter and irritated disbelief.

I was definitely on the side of irritated disbelief - not because what Alice said wasn't true, but because I couldn't believe she had just _said_ it like that. Shouldn't we have prepared Isobel first? At least warned her not to tell anyone?

"You know," Alice went on, ignoring my glare entirely and instead addressing Isobel's doubts, "blood-sucking undead?" She gave Isobel her most predatory smile as Isobel continued to look skeptical. "Come on, Isobel, you figured out that there was mind-to-mind communication and foreseeing happening with very little prompting. You even figured out that we aren't human. But now you're going to balk at _vampires_? You need to put that habit and cultural conditioning aside again for a minute."

"Telepathy and foresight could have natural mechanisms," Isobel argued. "You're asking me to believe in something undeniably _super_ natural. Besides, if it were true, wouldn't it be dangerous for me to be with you? Why wouldn't you have killed me yet?"

"It _is_ dangerous for you to be with us," I rumbled. "Especially...with me."

Isobel turned her head and fixed her wide brown eyes on me.

"Ugh," Alice interjected, "don't listen to him. Most vampires do drink human blood, but we don't. We feed on animals, and, most of the time, we're really good at sticking to that diet."

"We aren't perfect, Alice," I snapped. "Don't mislead her. We are _not_ safe."

"I didn't say _safe_ ," she fired right back. "But I know you and your melodramatic nonsense, Edward. How long since you _slipped up_? You should tell her - she deserves to know whom you've stalked and _why_."

I turned away in mute refusal. When - _if_ \- Isobel and I talked about my crimes, it would not be like this. Not as a means of making a point, especially not a point I disagreed with so completely.

"We aren't completely safe, but we are, on the whole, very good," she went on when it became clear that I wasn't about to cooperate. "For me, it's been a little less than six decades since I last lost control. It's been five for Emmett. Five and a half for Esme. Rosalie hasn't killed anyone since just after she was turned and that wasn't for feeding. It was - well, she should tell you about how and why she ended up being turned. Carlisle has never taken a human life. Edward - "

I growled.

"Edward," she continued firmly, "is an idiot who will no doubt give you his guilt-ridden version of what happened in his own time."

Isobel nodded her acceptance, but then raised one eyebrow. "I notice you don't mention Jasper."

"Um, yes, Jasper has had it harder," Alice admitted. "He's been getting better, though, which is why he's able to attend school now."

"Oh," Isobel said, her voice dripping with sarcasm, "that makes me feel _much_ better."

"I would stop him before he hurt anyone," Alice promised, her voice plaintive.

"Right," Isobel sighed. "Look, Alice, I know you're trying to be reassuring, but 'I haven't been a murderer for the last sixty years' isn't as comforting as you might think. I mean - what about the people you killed? I'm sure _they_ didn't want to die. It's great that you haven't _kept_ killing people, but it doesn't absolve you of the crimes you _did_ commit."

"Exactly," I grumbled.

Alice bit her lip and looked away in the brief, uncomfortable silence that followed. "I know that," she whispered, looking much more fragile than she was physically capable of being. Emotionally - was another question. I felt the first stirrings of guilt. "I don't want to hurt anyone - not _ever_. Even when I was first turned, before I knew there were options available, like living off animals - I _tried_ not to hurt people. I didn't always succeed - I can't describe the thirst to you, Isobel. If we go too long without feeding on _something_ , it will literally take over. And the worst is - it's not like a berserker rage where everything goes black. No. I remember every detail of every - " She broke off and hid her face in her hands.

We couldn't cry - one of the terrible cruelties of our situation. For all that Alice and I disagreed about the fundamental wrongness of what we were, I couldn't help feeling compassion for her pain. I, too, knew what it was to wish that I could simply - forget.

Her obvious suffering moved Isobel, as well. "Oh," Isobel said quietly, "I didn't realize - it was like that." I looked at her in time to see tears fill her eyes as she watched my sister. "I'm sorry, Alice," she murmured. "I...shouldn't have been so harsh. Of course you wouldn't _want_ to hurt anyone." She reached out and touched Alice's wrist, surrounding Alice's hand in both of hers when Alice let it fall from her face.

Alice looked down at their joined hands and then up at Isobel. "You don't mind?" she asked, earning a confused look from Isobel before she continued, "I...know I'm cold."

A smile pulled at one side of Isobel's mouth. "I probably wouldn't cuddle up to you in the middle of a blizzard, but I don't mind."

They sat that way for a moment. I was jealous of Alice, resting her hand companionably in Isobel's, even though I knew that there was nothing romantic about their shared affection. It was also, I admitted silently to myself, good to hear Isobel _say_ didn't mind touching us rather than trying to infer her preferences from her actions.

"I suppose," Isobel said at length, "that if you feel bad about the lives you've taken, it means you're still capable of moral reasoning."

"Yes," Alice and I agreed together.

"Most humans aren't violent," she observed. "If your thirst is the only thing that _drives_ you to violence, and if most vampires drink human blood…"

She glanced at us for confirmation. Alice nodded and I said, "They do."

"Then I can begin to extrapolate how terrible your thirst must be to take normal humans and turn nearly all of them into murderers," she finished quietly.

"It helps, I think," I told her, "than none of us remembers being human very well."

"Oh?" she replied.

"I don't remember at all," Alice piped, "but that's unusual."

"We have perfect recall," I explained to Isobel, "and the process of turning is…"

Alice and I exchanged a glance. "Deeply unpleasant," Alice supplied - intentionally understating the case. She was still aiming for the future in which Isobel joined our family permanently.

"The most horrifyingly painful thing I can imagine," I corrected ruthlessly. If Isobel was inclined to choose _that_...well, I might not be able to stop her. But I wouldn't soften the reality, either. "As our minds grow sharper during the process, the sensory overload makes everything that came before seem increasingly dim. And then - once it's complete, we are, every moment, creating new, perfect, crystal-clear memories. They crowd out whatever is left from our human lives. So, you see, we begin our existences feeling disconnected from our human selves. I have little doubt that it makes the thirst easier to succumb to."

"I see," Isobel said thoughtfully. "So then...to be around me, you have to fight off instincts that regularly make vampires kill humans." I could practically see her mind adding up all the times she had been close to me - in my arms, in fact - and when she spoke again her gaze was fixed on me. "Is it...very difficult for you, when you're with me?"

That was, perhaps, the question I least wanted her to ask. My eyes dropped to the steering wheel in front of me as my mind writhed away, refusing to settle on an answer. It occurred to me that we needed to head for the restaurant soon and I wondered if the other girls would already be done eating when we arrived. That might make things easier - we could all head for the theater. Except, no, Isobel needed to eat. Theaters, I gathered, did not generally serve anything that might be called a _meal_.

In spite of my mind's attempt at finding something more comfortable to fasten onto, Isobel's question remained hanging in the air. I could hear Alice trying to keep herself from answering for me as the silence stretched out. "Yes," I said at last, swallowing all the qualifiers I wanted so desperately to add.

Alice had no such qualms. "He wouldn't hurt you!" she insisted shrilly. "He - "

I cut her off with a growl before she could reveal secrets that weren't hers to tell, and waited for the sword to fall. Surely Isobel would understand now. Surely she would realize that I was a danger - a monster. Surely she would ask about my past -

Isobel's incongruous chuckle made me look up in shock. "I know he's not going to hurt me," she told Alice before fastening her velvet eyes on my face. The wholly undeserved trust that lit them took my breath away. "I know you won't hurt me," she repeated. "Why would you do that after everything you've gone through to keep other people from hurting me? The only question is: can I do anything to make things easier for you?"

I stared at her mutely for several moments, trying to understand the meaning of her words through a fog of disbelief.

"I don't think there's anything easy about this," Alice sighed when I didn't answer.

That was entirely too true. "Isobel," I growled, "have you heard _none_ of this? _I want to kill you_. You can't possibly think - " I broke off, not even knowing how to finish that thought.

"You say you have the impulse to hurt me," she argued. "and I don't doubt that, but look at the evidence - look at all the times you've come to my rescue, even when I didn't need it. It's fairly obvious that, on the balance, you want me to live more than you want to kill me. So what can I do to make _not_ killing me easier on you?"

Alice gave me an impish smirk. "You could ask us to - "

"Alice!" I roared, reading the rest of her remark in her mind. She was _not_ going to offer Isobel the option of being turned.

"Fiiiiine," my sister sighed before returning her attention to Isobel. "I'm not sure there's much you can do. It's mostly about scent and it's not like you can shower off your natural aroma. Edward just has to learn to live with it. Which, incidentally, he's been doing very well."

"Is it hard for you, too?" Isobel asked Alice.

"Not too much," Alice replied. "I'm good at normal, everyday self-denial. We all are. The problem is that not all humans smell equally good to all of us. You happen to be particularly appealing to Edward, which obviously makes all of this more difficult. Really, though, if you had to be especially attractive someone in our family, Carlisle, Rosalie and Edward are the safest. They have by far the best control."

Isobel's eyes met mine. "I would believe that of Edward."

I could only stare back in helpless despair.

"Good, because it's true," Alice said with finality, sounding satisfied. "We should head for the restaurant," she added. "If we're not there by the time they're done eating, there's a fair chance that Angela will be worried enough to call Isobel's dad."

I didn't answer, just started the car and pulled out on the road. I could see when it wouldn't do any good to argue further. So Isobel accepted that I was a vampire. It barely scratched the surface of what I had done, and when I told her the rest I wouldn't have Alice there to make excuses for me.

"What are we going to tell them?" Isobel asked as we began moving, lumping herself in effortlessly with me and Alice.

"That's easy," Alice chirped. "Edward and I came back from camping a bit early, and decided to watch the sunset at the bird sanctuary just north of here before joining you guys at the restaurant. Marine Drive is the fastest way to that part of town from the spit, and we happened to turn onto the wrong Second Street, so we showed up in time to rescue you."

"And they'll believe that?" Isobel asked a little skeptically.

"Of course," Alice answered with an unconcerned wave of her hand. "People always believe in lucky coincidences. One 'thank God Edward mixed up the roads' and no one will find it weird at all."

"Why did _I_ mix up the roads?" I asked in a rumble, not quite ready to let go of my dark mood, but finding Isobel's introduction into the world of lying plausibly to humans a little amusing in spite of myself.

"Because you were driving, duh," Alice giggled.

"Don't you want the credit for saving me?" Isobel asked.

"I _deserve_ the credit for saving you," I reminded her, trying to scowl and failing completely.

"Hey!" Alice protested. " _Who_ was it insisting that you come to Port Angeles early, again?"

I wasn't about to admit that Alice deserved the credit, even - or maybe especially - if she did, so I reminded her about her misleading vision showing Isobel and Angela going off together, and the fact that she hadn't let us track Isobel on foot, which would have been faster. We spent the rest of the drive bickering more or less amiably over how to divide the credit for Isobel's rescue while she laughed at both of us.

Isobel called Angela when we arrived at the restaurant to find out whether the three girls had finished eating, even though Alice assured us that they had. After some discussion, we met them outside, where Isobel was - much to her apparent consternation - pulled into a series of hugs by her friends and lectured very sternly about the dangers of getting lost alone after dark, especially without a useful phone. I wondered if she would let me buy her a new one, deciding, reluctantly, that she probably wouldn't - at least not for the foreseeable future.

After the lectures, we had to decide what to do. Isobel, predictably, wanted to head to the movie theater, protesting that she would be fine with popcorn and maybe a pretzel or nachos, or something equally devoid of the nutrition humans needed. Angela thought we should all return to the restaurant while Isobel ate a proper meal, and then catch a later showing of the movie. Alice didn't like either of these plans and set about putting her own into motion.

"We have two cars," she pointed out, "so if you're willing to take me home, Jessica, Edward could eat with Isobel and then take her to the later showing of the movie."

It wasn't exactly what Jessica wanted. She spent a moment trying to decide how to protest, but then she remembered a conversation she had shared with Isobel - one regarding the possibility of Isobel dating me. I wondered when _that_ had happened. In any case, Jessica concluded that it meant she probably wasn't allowed to argue us out of spending time alone together.

"It will be fun," Alice continued brightly, going to Jessica's side and linking arms with her. "We can all go back to your house afterward and you can show me what you bought! I might even have some jewelry to match, and I think our feet are about the same size, so maybe some of my shoes would fit you…"

That last won Jessica over and fully resigned her to missing out on seeing a movie with me. Alice certainly knew her audience.

Alice caught June with her other arm and led the two girls towards Jessica's car, making plans for stopping by our house before going on to Jessica's and verbally unpacking some of the admittedly impressive contents of her jewelry boxes and shoe racks. Angela turned to follow, but then paused, stopping to give Isobel one more hug - a cover for ascertaining that Isobel didn't mind having dinner and a movie alone with me. Angela, too, had apparently been apprised of the possibility of a relationship between us and expected no trouble, but felt a principled need to make sure. Isobel blushed in response to the question, laughed, and gave her a thumbs up.

"Call and tell me about it tomorrow," Angela hissed, and then disappeared after the other three girls.

Isobel turned to look at me once we were alone, her expression a little sheepish - she undoubtedly knew that I had easily heard everything Angela had said and thought. I raised one eyebrow at her. "Did you consult _all_ your friends about me?" I asked.

"I needed advice," she told me with a shrug, trying to look nonchalant but ruining it by blushing again.

Rather than replying, I held the door open for her to enter the restaurant.

The interior of the little Italian eatery was warm and dimly lit by human standards - meant to foster an intimate ambience, no doubt. A hostess stepped forward to greet us as soon as the door opened, before either of us had actually stepped through it. "Hi!" she said, "Welcome to…" That was as far as she got before I followed Isobel through the door and her mind simply froze at the sight of me.

Isobel cast a little smirk back towards me - one I didn't immediately understand. I wasn't trying to scare the hostess as I had the devil's companion earlier. I usually made humans nervous, it was true, but I didn't typically terrify them into paralysis merely by approaching them.

"Two, please," Isobel said into the void left by the hostess's stunned silence.

"Oh, uh, right!" the hostess replied, her thoughts still sluggish as she tried to remember what it was she was doing. "Welcome to Bella Italia. I'll, uh, I'll show you to your table." She turned away to pull out two menus, momentarily freeing her slightly from the spell I had inadvertently cast on her. I suddenly understood as her thoughts spun away into an incoherent loop of admiration.

I didn't scare her. My appearance _enthralled_ her.

I tried to tune her out as she led us to a table set for two near one of the front windows. It was a nice spot, but not private enough. I hardly expected Isobel to be done asking questions, especially now that we had some time to kill before the movie. I pulled out a fifty and slipped it to the hostess. "Could we get something more private?" I asked in a low voice.

"Oh, um, of course," she answered, her voice a little high and breathless. She turned and led us toward a series of high-backed booths set against one wall as I tried to decide what on Earth was happening. I didn't usually get this sort of response from humans. Her thoughts were running up and down scenarios that would leave me free to turn my attention to her: _Why does he want privacy? Why does he want privacy with_ her _?_ _Oh God, maybe they're breaking up and he's afraid she'll make a scene! Oh I hope so. Please, God, please…_

Ugh. I worked harder at tuning her out, instead turning my attention to Isobel - who was watching me with wry amusement. "Private?" she asked in an undertone as we slid into the booth.

I gestured for her to wait. "Your server will be with you in a moment," the hostess told us. "Uh, is there anything I can get you in the meantime?"

"No, we're fine," I told her, my tone a bit clipped and my eyes fixed on Isobel, hoping the hostess would get the hint and leave us alone. After another moment of hesitation, she _finally_ turned and left.

"So?" Isobel asked as soon as the hostess was out of earshot.

"I thought privacy might be useful since you're bound to have more questions," I explained.

"Ah," she replied, nodding. "You're almost as smart as you are pretty, Edward Cullen."

She was teasing me, but I smiled graciously anyway. "I do my best." Her reference to my _prettiness_ \- and I wondered why she kept using that particular adjective - gave me the clue I needed to unravel the hostess's reaction, though. I had, on several occasions, accidentally turned a little too much vampiric charisma on Isobel. It seemed likely that, when I was with her, I simply had less control over it than usual. I wanted to be charming for her, of course, and it seemed to affect everyone else I came in contact with, as well.

Isobel picked up her menu. "Well, let me decide what to eat before I start on the interrogation - maybe if I'm fast, I'll have a chance to get my order in before our waitress swoons over you." Once she had opened it, she added, "I always thought Jonathan Harker was a bit thick, but it turns out that vampires really are _that_ charming."

I leaned forward, trying to catch her eyes, but they remained resolutely fixed on the options provided by the menu. "You did _not_ just compare me to Count Dracula."

"I'd better be careful," she giggled, still not looking at me as she scanned the words in front of her. "If I hang around you too much I might become a New Woman - having sex, campaigning for the vote, trying to own property, wanting an education, eating children…"

My reply was cut off by the approach of our waitress. "Hi!" she said brightly, her greeting entirely directed at me. _Jeez_ , she thought, _Emily wasn't even kidding._ Look _at him._ "My name is Amber and I'll be taking care of you this evening." _Hopefully in the bathroom, and then maybe in the back of my car on my break, and, if you're still not_ taken care of _, possibly in my bed at home, too._ "Can I start you with something to drink?"

"I'll just have water," I said, not adding that I would prefer enough to bathe in, because her thoughts made me feel defiled. On second thought, maybe I needed enough to douse the waitress in, too, because it seemed like an icy shower would do her some good.

"Are you sure?" she asked, disappointed.

"Yes," I replied firmly.

"I'll be right back with that, then," she said, already beginning to turn away.

"Um," I began.

"Excuse me," Isobel said at the same time.

"Oh! I'm so sorry," Amber said, still addressing me. She finally turned reluctantly to look at the girl seated across from me.

Isobel gave her an ironic little wave. "Hey there. Really nice to meet you, Amber."

I swallowed a laugh as the waitress blushed.

"Could you tell me what kinds of herbal teas you serve?" Isobel asked.

The waitress rattled them off, sounding vaguely annoyed, and Isobel took a moment longer than was probably strictly necessary selecting one. "I'm also ready to order now," Isobel added when she had finished.

"Oh," Amber replied, sounding much more surprised than the statement called for. "Okay, go ahead."

Isobel listed what she wanted, including an antipasto platter as an appetizer "for us to share." I was struck again by how easily she put us on the same team, covering, without any prompting from me, for the fact that she knew I wouldn't order an entree of my own.

Amber immediately turned back to me when Isobel had finished. "Do you know what you want?" she asked. _You can eat it off of me, whatever it is._

"I'll just share the appetizer. I'm not hungry," I answered, my eyes fixed on the beautiful, clever, almost frighteningly resilient girl on the other side of the table.

"Oh," the waitress said, pouting as though my disinterest in food were somehow a personal insult. "I'll be right back with those drinks, then."

Isobel watched her go with a smirk. "Man, I think she would let you have her right here on the table if you showed even the slightest bit of interest," she said.

I shuddered. "That is disgusting. Don't even joke about it." I was getting more than enough of it from the woman's thoughts.

Isobel chuckled. "I wonder what she would do if she came back and found us making out."

My breath caught as I stared at her.

She stopped laughing and blushed furiously as her eyes met mine. "What?" she muttered, "It was just a hypothetical question. Besides," she went on, "she would probably go for my eyes or start pulling my hair out or something. I wouldn't put myself in actual physical danger just to taunt someone else."

"As if I would let her hurt you," I scoffed, reclaiming some of my scattered wits, but, at the same time, inordinately glad that _I_ couldn't blush.

"And you wonder why I trust that _you_ won't hurt me," she scoffed right back, rolling her eyes. "You only leap instantly to my defense - even my _hypothetical_ defense - at every opportunity."

I gave her a repressive frown, which she replied to by sticking her tongue out at me.

"Anyway," she sighed, "back to _Dracula_..."

Amber returned with Isobel's appetizer before she could finish her thought, followed closely by a male waiter holding our drinks. They must have the platters already put together and waiting to go, considering how quickly it was out. I might have been grateful under other circumstances - not only was _Dracula_ a poor representation of vampires, I found its pointless Victorian rambling offensively tasteless - but Amber had proved herself even more offensive and tasteless, and I didn't look forward to hearing her companion's thoughts about the lovely girl sitting across from me.

"Here you go," Amber said brightly, placing the appetizer plate more in front of me than between me and Isobel. I caught a certain smugness in her thoughts, but was too busy trying not to visibly recoil from the stench of human food to ferret out its cause.

I began to understand as the the young man following our waitress put a tea tray in front of Isobel. "Here you go, honey," he said in a soft voice that sounded as though it was pitched a little higher than was natural for him. "Do you take cream or sugar?"

Isobel was staring at him with wide eyes. "Yes, please, both," she answered in a near-whisper, thanking him at the same volume when he placed a second tray with the additional ingredients beside the first.

He turned to look at me and a goofy smile spread across his face. "And here's _your_ water," he said, placing it in front of me. "Let me know if you need _anything_ else." _And I do mean_ anything _,_ he thought.

Oh God, he was gay.

I looked helplessly at Isobel, who was biting her lip in an attempt to keep from laughing. Even without being able to mind read, she had managed to work it out herself - maybe before I had. I mumbled something appropriate - something that, blessedly, made both our servers leave.

Isobel dissolved into helpless giggles as soon as they were well away. "It's not _funny_ ," I hissed at her.

"Oh, I beg to differ," she choked. "Oh God, Edward, your _face_." Whatever expression I had caused a fresh wave of mirth, and she collapsed sideways on the bench seat.

I rose slightly to peer over the edge of the table at her, concerned that she would laugh so hard she would find it difficult to breathe. The sight of her unrestrained glee couldn't fail to melt away my irritation, though, and in a matter of moments I found myself smiling along with her.

She managed to get herself under control after a few minutes and sat back up, her hair somewhat disarranged and her face still flushed from her laughter. Watching her, I forgot to breathe. She was so beautiful.

"You really can't blame her for bringing him over," she told me conversationally without any prompting. "You were so dismissive - of course she _wondered_."

For a moment I wasn't certain whom she was referring to - there was only one girl of any importance in my world. Then I recalled why Isobel had been laughing in the first place. "I _can_ blame her," I responded sternly. "I'm here with a lovely young woman - it's all the reason I need to be dismissive of anyone else's attempts at flirtation."

She blushed. "Come on, Edward - I might pass as pretty when I'm standing in a group of humans, but next to you? No one would look twice."

"I would. I _do_ ," I replied, staring into the warm velvet of her eyes, trying to make her understand the truth: she was so impossibly beautiful.

"Uh," she said, and then squeezed her velvet eyes closed. "You're doing that _thing_ again. Please stop."

Ah - too much emotion again. "Sorry," I muttered.

One of her eyes opened hesitantly, and she sighed in relief when she saw that I had managed to rein it in. She picked up a piece of meat from the appetizer plate and began wrapping up other...things...in it. I took the opportunity to push the plate closer to her. I certainly didn't want any of it.

"Is that good?" I asked, watching her bite into it with evident pleasure.

"Yes," she replied, "and I'm also hungry, which makes it better. That's why I ordered so much - though I'll probably end up taking some of it home. Do you not remember…" she paused, "this kind of thing?" she finished carefully.

I didn't know why - she had been talking about _Dracula_ openly enough earlier. Maybe she assumed that anyone overhearing us would have taken it for granted that we were actually talking about the book, though.

"I remember a little," I answered. "But I don't remember how it tasted or felt, or why I enjoyed it. It's a bit like...not being able to remember smells. I've heard - people - can't generally do that. It's probably one reason why scents can be such powerful triggers for memory." Scent was a powerful trigger for humans, anyway; vampires remembered scent with perfect clarity.

"So...this kind of thing...doesn't appeal to you anymore?" she said.

"Not in the least," I confirmed.

"Huh," she said, taking another bite and chewing it thoughtfully. "That really sucks." She indicated my water glass. "You drink water, though. I've seen you. Or - maybe it was Alice."

"Blood is mostly water," I reminded her in a low voice. "There is something essential about water - not in the sense that we need it, but in the sense that it is so basic that we can...deal with it."

"Do you know why?" she asked, sounding fascinated.

"Not precisely," I replied. "What we do know - " I hesitated, trying to decide what to tell her - what I _could_ tell her in a setting this public. Not much, I decided - and, besides, I wasn't the best person to ask. "It's really more Carlisle's area of expertise. I'm certain he would be glad to answer any questions you have."

"Okay," she agreed.

We lapsed into silence as she made steady inroads in the platter she had ordered, looking thoughtful. I was certain that her momentary reserve was merely the prelude to another round of questions, and my certainty was confirmed after her entree had been delivered - complete, of course, with another attempt at flirtation from the waitress, this one thankfully rather subdued.

"I know Alice and I are going to talk about it," Isobel said once we were alone again, poking at the pasta she had ordered with her fork, "but could I ask you a couple of things about her abilities now?"

I saw nothing to object to in that request, and said so. Having lived with Alice for so long, I knew nearly as much about her gift as she did.

Isobel took a bite of her pasta, chewed slowly and swallowed before saying anything more. "So...Alice can see what I say to people and how I act towards them? Anyone?"

"Sort of," I said. "It's easier when the people interacting are all known to her, and, honestly, most of the time she doesn't get sound - or movement, for that matter. Remember that her visions are less clear the less certain they are?"

Isobel nodded silently and took another bite.

"Most things involving individuals are relatively uncertain. You - _we_ \- can all affect each other so unpredictably. The first thing she loses is sound, and, after that, motion. Most of her visions of people are still images with some additional...I suppose you might call it 'meta-information' - how the participants feel about each other, for example. If you want to know the weather at a certain time and place, or when Mt. Rainier is next scheduled to erupt, Alice could view that in full 3D with surround-sound. What you'll say to your father tomorrow morning, or Jessica on Monday - that would be much more difficult for her."

Isobel nodded again and speared a piece of - well, she had ordered pasta with salmon, so that was probably what the meat was. "I don't mind Alice looking at things I'll say to her," she said, examining the strange pinkish-red flesh on the end of her fork. "I mean, if it's possible I would say something to her under some combination of circumstances, it's fine if she knows what it would be. And I guess I don't mind if you want her to look at something I would say to you - and I also guess that goes for any of your family. It's not really different from one of you _telling_ her about what we talked about, and that's fine. Conversations between us always involve _two_ people, and it's as much up to you as it is up to me if you want to share them."

"But you don't like the idea of her seeing what you would say to, for example, Jessica or your father," I supplied, understanding where she was headed.

She nodded. "It's just the _principle_ of the thing. My relationships with other people are up to me, and they aren't meant to be on display for Alice or anyone else."

I felt a distinct sinking in my stomach and knew that she was going to be _very_ angry when I admitted to following her on her date with Tyler. "I suppose, by the same token, you don't want me to listen in while you're talking to your friends." Damn. Leaving aside the past, that would still be _hard_. Sometimes those moments seemed like the only thing that kept me sane throughout the day - or the weekend.

"Preferably," she agreed. "It's not _so_ bad at school - it's hard to really be in private there. But other times…"

I sighed. "You don't need to worry too much about Alice. Like I said, she mostly doesn't get sound or movement when she's observing interactions between individuals. As for me, I'll - do my best to respect your wishes."

She finally ate the fish on her fork and nodded, her eyes still fixed on the meal in front of her. "Edward…" Her gaze finally rose to meet mine. "I really am sorry about what I said earlier. I'll understand if you overhear things accidentally."

And now she was being generous. I looked away. My Monday afternoon confession was shaping up to be even worse than I had anticipated. "You still don't know everything," I muttered.

"I gathered that," she replied evenly, a ghost of a smile touching her lips when I looked at her in surprise. "Alice was taunting you about - " her voice dropped to a whisper, "the people you've killed."

Of course. I nodded slowly, half expecting her to ask. She didn't, though, instead just taking and then releasing a deep breath. "I guess we still have a date for Monday after school?" she asked.

Some date. Once more, I nodded without saying anything. I didn't dare - it was hard to know what words might spill out if I tried.

Isobel smiled at me suddenly. There was a wry edge to it, but it was a real smile. "Try not to worry _too_ much about it. Honestly, Edward? Chances are that I'll agree with Alice's opinion on whatever-it-is. You _are_ kinda melodramatic sometimes."

My brows drew together and I shot a fierce glare across the table at her, but she just chuckled to herself and turned her attention to her plate, loading her fork with pasta and eating a couple of bites quickly. After that, she started in on her salad, making a soft noise of pleasure as she tasted it for the first time. I struggled not to mentally place the noise into any other contexts. "Is it good?" I asked for the second time this evening.

She nodded enthusiastically. "The dressing is a balsamic vinaigrette, but it's really mellow. I'll bet they make it themselves, with _real_ balsamic vinegar. Did you know that to be considered 'real' it has to be aged a _minimum_ of like twelve years? Angela told me that and let me taste her vinaigrette one day at lunch. She makes it herself, too."

"I didn't know that," I confessed, smiling at her enthusiasm. I forbore pointing out that it wasn't the kind of thing that would ever be useful or relevant for me, so there was no reason for me to know.

Isobel finished her salad and then leaned back in her seat. "I am _stuffed_ ," she sighed. "The antipasto was definitely overkill - but it was really good."

I flagged down our waitress and asked her for a box and our bill, ignoring the fluttering of her eyelashes. Apparently after some reflection, my reaction - or lack thereof - to her co-worker had rekindled her hope. I didn't know why - for all she knew, I was completely asexual.

Thankfully, Isobel still only seemed amused. Or perhaps not _thankfully_ \- I didn't want her to be uncomfortable or unhappy, of course, but jealousy could also be a sign of attachment. I was quite regularly jealous of the attention she received, for instance.

The waitress returned with our bill and placed it in front of me, the slip of paper she had written her number on and placed inside at the forefront of her mind. I sighed quietly and reached into my back pocket, intending to pull out more than enough to cover the bill without actually having to look at anything, giving me a perfectly good excuse for not seeing her final, desperate gambit.

Before I could finish pulling out my wallet, though, Isobel reached across the table and picked up the folder.

"I've got it," I protested as she opened it.

"Don't be ridiculous," she replied. "You hardly ate anything. Why would _you_ pay?"

Amber, still standing by the table as she waited for me to hand her our payment, froze, her thoughts spiraling into desperately embarrassed panic, as I tried to find a plausible protest. Or, rather, a plausible protest that I thought Isobel would _listen_ to.

Isobel pulled out the receipt with the total on it and spotted the little slip of paper underneath, with Amber's name scrawled across the top. I felt myself cringing, fearing she really would be hurt this time, but unable to find any way to salvage the situation. She pulled out the second piece of paper and bit her lip before giving the waitress a sparkling glance. "I'm flattered, really," she said, nearly causing me to laugh aloud with relief, "but, first, I live all the way in Forks and don't think I could do a semi-long-distance thing. Second, I've never found myself very attracted to women." She stuck a couple of twenties into the folder and handed it back to the bright-red Amber.

Isobel raised an eyebrow at me once the waitress had disappeared. "She _really_ shouldn't have assumed you'd be paying. _I_ was the one eating." A shrug seemed to dismiss the subject for her, though, and she began spooning pasta in the to-go box I had asked for.

I chuckled, entertained by her easy command of a deeply awkward situation, but not quite certain if I should be concerned about her complete lack of jealousy. At least, I supposed, she hadn't handed the waitress's number to me - a maneuver I wouldn't have put past her if she truly didn't care. "I thought you might be upset," I commented.

She stopped transferring her food and looked up in surprise. "Why would I be upset? First, I have no claim on you, so I have no right. Second, you already act like I _do_ have a claim on you, and are so disdainful of other girls that it borders on being rude. What more could I possibly ask for?" She grinned at me. "The only way I could keep other women from hitting on you would be to blind the forty-something percent of the population that is straight and female, and then I'd have to go track down all the gay men, too. It's just too much work, Edward."

I smiled and rolled my eyes - the attention directed my way wasn't _that_ bad. Even if, I supposed, it _was_ worse when I was with her. And she _did_ have a claim on me, I just hadn't explained it to her yet. I would add it to the list of things she probably didn't want to hear but needed to know anyway.

Isobel wasn't finished, though. "Besides," she continued, becoming very interested in arranging the leftover meats and cheeses from her appetizer with extreme precision next to her pasta, "who says I _wasn't_ upset? Do you really think I'm normally that mean? Because I'm not - I get clever in the worst possible way when I'm angry."

"'Worst' seems like an exaggeration," I told her. "What you said wasn't _nice_ , but you could have made it a lot more uncomfortable for her. If you had wanted to, you might even have complained to the manager and she might have been fired. What she did was inappropriate."

Isobel flashed me a smile. "Okay, point taken. Still, though - a little anger and it's like all the parts of my brain that have delusions of evil-genius-hood kick into high gear while the filter that usually catches that stuff takes a vacation. I'm not very nice when I'm angry."

"Who is?" I shrugged. I liked the way Isobel had handled the waitress - embarrassing her enough to let her know that her actions were wrong without materially harming her. I wished it were the kind of thing that occurred to me when I got angry, but violence seemed to be the go-to vampiric response, and I was no exception.

Amber returned a moment later with Isobel's change. I insisted on at least leaving the tip that _Isobel_ insisted was necessary in spite of the uncomfortable service. "The wait staff usually tip out to the cooks and busboys," she told me, "and the food was really good even if the service wasn't. It's not fair to penalize them because of the server. Besides, did you know the federal minimum wage for tipped employees is only like two dollars? Even though employees are supposed to be able to claim the full minimum wage if they don't make it up in tips, employers have a lot of power to deny - "

"Washington requires _all_ employers to pay the full state minimum wage before tips," I cut her off, rolling my eyes and tossing a few bills on the table. "The state minimum wage is also, incidentally, one of the highest in the nation."

"Oh. Well, that's good. Still, though - it's probably not a _living_ wage."

I shrugged. "I wouldn't know," I pointed out, resisting the urge to offer her my hand as she struggled out of the booth, trying to both hold on to her to-go box _and_ avoid tripping over her own feet.

"You should pay attention to this stuff if you're going to live in...society, Edward," she replied with disapproval as we passed the hostess with a nod - she licked her lips and swallowed hard as she watched me go, but just wished us a good night - and exited the restaurant.

"How often do you think I go out to eat?" I demanded in return, turning toward the spot just down the block where I had left the car.

Isobel followed me without looking, thinking my response over for a moment. "Yeah - I guess. Waiters aren't the only tipped employees out there, though."

"And I'm usually very generous," I told her patiently, suppressing another eye roll. "Excuse me if spending an entire meal getting hit on while my date is sitting _right there_ makes me disinclined to reward the service."

"That's not what I'm complaining about," she said, poking my arm. "You've made yourself a part of," she glanced around quickly and lowered her voice, "human society. I'm guessing that you made your fortune unfairly by giving Alice some seed money and letting her go wild on the stock market. That means you're part of a _system_ and you should know how that system affects a diverse array of people. Not everyone has a legitimate psychic in the family, you know." She paused and took a breath as we arrived at the car. "And also - this is a _date_?"

"Well," I said, hiding my smile as I opened the car door for her, "I'm sure that's what Alice intended. You wouldn't want to disappoint her, would you?"

Isobel stepped closer to get in, but paused long enough to give me a look that was about equal parts amused and embarrassed, and made me acutely aware that there was only about half a foot of space between her lips and mine. "I wouldn't go on a date with you just to make Alice happy," she informed me.

Wait - did she mean that this _wasn't_ a date, or that it _was_ , but for reasons other than Alice's expectations? Reasons like - what, though? "What does that mean?" I demanded as she slid into the car.

A low chuckle was my only answer.

Oh, that was not fair at _all_.

I jogged around the car, cursing the need to seem human, and got in the other side, intent on getting an answer to my question. Isobel was staring determinedly out the passenger-side window as I got in, though. Even though I stared at her for several seconds waiting for her to look at me, the only response I got was a slow blush staining her cheeks and a smile pulling at one side of her mouth. She also started humming - off-key - in an obvious attempt to seem unconcerned.

Well, I thought as I watched her, that was probably answer enough.

It was definitely a date.

I didn't even try to keep the grin off my face as I pulled into the street and headed for the theater.

If this _was_ a date, though, I should definitely be paying for things.

Convincing Isobel that I should pay was a difficult proposition, however, as I learned when we reached the theater. "There's no need," she told me as we paused outside to discuss it before going in, "I came prepared to pay for my own meal and movie ticket, so there's no reason for you to do it."

"Of course there's a reason for me to do it," I argued. "It hardly seems like a real date if - "

"Don't you dare finish that thought," she told me, her already-warm brown eyes heating until they sparked with real fire.

I paused briefly to consider other avenues of attack. "I'm not being old-fashioned," I said slowly, and then corrected myself: "I'm not _just_ being old-fashioned. Isobel…" She was glaring at me and it made me smile. I reached out and brushed her soft hair lightly. It was getting colder as the wind picked up and the rain moved in from the ocean. Soon she would pull her hood up - at least when we were outside - and I wouldn't be able to touch her hair. It might tempt me into touching some less safe part of her, like her hand or her cheek - or her lips. "Isobel," I repeated more quietly, watching the blush rise to her cheeks. Embarrassment didn't soften her glare. "I _am_ old-fashioned. I can't deny that. But - when it comes to money, I'm also being practical. I have more than I could possibly spend. You don't. If you're going to insist on dividing the cost of the things we do together, then we should divide it proportionally based on our relative financial circumstances."

I paused to smirk at her while I watched her turn over what I'd said, and then leaned in, filling my nose and mouth with her beautiful, excruciating scent. "Which means, of course, that you won't ever pay for anything."

She smacked my chest with the back of her hand and I backed off, laughing. "Alright, maybe once every decade or two," I conceded, laughing harder when she rolled her eyes at me.

"Let's agree to negotiate it on a case-by-case basis," she told me, "and I'll let you pay _this_ time."

I thought I could handle winning on a case-by-case basis, though I didn't say so out loud - just smiled and agreed to her proposal.

We went in and bought tickets, but there was still a good half hour to kill until the movie started, so Isobel suggested we play some of the arcade games in the lobby. I was surprised. "Do you play arcade games?" I asked, thinking of her difficulties remaining upright more than half the time and wondering if her hand-eye coordination could be any better than her foot-eye coordination.

"No, I'm terrible at them," she replied, grinning,

We chose one anyway - a racing game, which felt _nothing_ like real racing - and then we both spent most of our time laughing at the impressive mess Isobel managed to make of her fake cars. I was suddenly _very_ glad that her truck seemed incapable of moving faster than a snail's pace.

She linked her arm with mine as we went into the theater just before the previews started, hugging it against herself and causing me to look down at her with surprise. "You don't mind, do you?" she asked, smiling up at me for a moment before she turned away to cover a sudden yawn.

"No…" I replied hesitantly, thinking that it was no wonder she was tired after the night - well, and _day_ \- she'd had. Simultaneously, I tried very hard _not_ to notice that her breast was pressed - quite innocently, I was certain - against my arm. Perhaps because she had removed her coat while we were playing games, it felt more intense - and more pleasant - than it had earlier in the evening when she had hugged me. I could feel the warmth of her body through her clothes and my jacket, and it made me wonder - it made me wonder things I needed to stop thinking about. Immediately. I pulled my arm gently from her grasp and took her hand instead.

Whether I was cold or not, it was safer that way.

She didn't protest, her attention apparently wrapped up in fending off another yawn. "Sorry," she said when it had passed. "I probably shouldn't have eaten quite so much. Now I'm getting sleepy."

I squeezed her hand reassuringly and flashed her a smile before turning my attention to finding good seats for us.

The theater was reasonably full - not a surprise given that it was a Saturday night and _Les Miserables_ was a relatively recent release - but we found two seats next to each other without too much trouble, we just had to sit a bit to one side of the room. I retained Isobel's hand as we took our seats and through the previews, still trying to wrap my head around the fact that she was letting me hold it at all.

At some point, however, I realized that her skin had cooled several degrees and released her, not wishing to cause her any discomfort. Her head immediately swiveled towards me, her expression confused, so I leaned in and whispered an explanation: "Your hand is getting cold."

She looked at it and nodded - and then pushed up the armrest between us so that she could move closer, leaning into me and resting her head against my shoulder. I watched her - stunned, but certainly not displeased. She glanced up at me to judge my reaction and I smiled, hoping that I didn't look as giddy as I felt.

It seemed I hadn't needed to pay for anything to make this feel like a real date after all. Now that Isobel had decided that was what it was, she appeared to be intent on making sure neither of us would come away with any doubts on that score. I smiled again - this time to myself - and returned my attention to the screen.

Isobel fell asleep sometime around Cosette's introduction to Jean Valjean, so I spread her coat carefully across her curled-up form and went back to watching. So far I wasn't very impressed with the all-star cast - there were certainly equally good actors who were also _much_ better singers in the world - but Jean Valjean, even played and sung rather poorly, couldn't fail to move me.

It was Valjean's story of redemption that had drawn me to _Les Miserables_ in the first place - but not because I saw myself in that role. No, my crimes were too terrible for that. Valjean was turned into a thief by poverty and the unwarranted suspicions of those around him, but he was always quick to offer aid and compassion to his fellow men. I could claim no such thing.

It was Carlisle whom I saw in Valjean. Within the context of the story, I was no more than a dark shadow of Marius - entirely undeserving Carlisle's love. I had proved my unworthiness by attempting to run from it and him and by embracing the path that he, in his wisdom, had shunned. Marius could never fully erase the debt he owed Valjean by the time of his marriage to Cosette, and my betrayal was infinitely worse. There would never be redemption for me.

Instead it was _Carlisle's_ redemption that I sought. Because he loved me, I strove to live up to his example, even knowing that I would never reach it and that none of my striving could ever erase the past.

This time watching _Les Miserables,_ however, it wasn't Valjean's redemption that consumed my attention. I was, for the first time, struck by the romance between Cosette and Marius. Cosette - helpless and pampered - was nothing like my brilliant Isobel, and Marius possessed no vices that materially detracted from his suitability as Cosette's lover and eventual husband. It was merely circumstance that seemed determined to keep them apart. My situation was entirely different - and yet I saw echoes of my own pain in theirs.

Now I wanted to watch _Les Mis_ with Isobel more than ever, but perhaps it would be better put off until we could see a real Broadway production. To the extent this movie version succeeded, it was more in _spite_ of the cast than _because_ of it.

It wasn't until the credits began to roll, after the final stirring chord of _Do You Hear The People Sing_ , that I shook Isobel gently awake. She had slept straight through the movie, giving me an indication of how tired she must have been.

She raised her head from my shoulder and looked around - and then groaned. "Oh God, I fell asleep." Her cheeks reddened. "I can't believe I fell asleep! I'm _so_ sorry, Edward. I haven't been sleeping well the last couple of nights and then with dinner - "

"It's fine," I reassured her, smiling. "After everything that happened this evening, it would be natural for you to be tired even if you had been sleeping perfectly well. Besides - you're welcome to sleep on my shoulder any time."

My words touched off a smile that flitted across her face, and then she rubbed her eyes, yawned, and stretched. "How was the movie? Worth renting at some point?"

"Probably not," I chuckled.

"Mm, then maybe I'm not so sorry I slept through most of it," she said. "If you really don't mind, that is."

Any evening I got to spend with her was perfect in my eyes. It hardly mattered what we were doing. I wasn't certain she was ready to hear that, though. "Why would I mind?" I teased her instead. "I'm already trying to come up with a movie I can ask you to sleep through with me next weekend."

She laughed and gave me a playful shove before bending to find her purse under the seat.

"Ready to go home?" I asked as she pulled her coat on and zipped it up.

"Ready to leave," she said, her eyes resting fleetingly on my face before she looked away again. "Would you mind if...I asked you some questions about, uh, _Dracula_ on the way home?"

I sincerely hoped that was code for asking about vampires more generally - I didn't want to answer everything in reference to a book I had never liked. "Of course you can ask," I replied, trying not to roll my eyes at the lens she seemed to have chosen to view my situation through. Almost anything would have been better than _Dracula_. I found _Carmilla_ , for instance, much more sensible in its brevity. _Let the Right One In_ superbly captured the loneliness of living as a vampire in a world of humans, while Stephen King's _Salem's Lot_ created a strikingly true picture of the dangers an unchecked group of vampires might represent. Even Anne Rice would have been a better choice - her vampires, while overly glamorous and sexualized, wrestled with morality in a way that I found uncomfortably familiar.

Isobel and I made our way out to the car wrapped in thoughtful silence. I could almost see her mind working as she organized what she wanted to ask me.

"Okay," she said as soon as we had closed our doors, sounding both eager and anxious. "I think we should start with some basics."

"Why not?" I agreed with a sigh, knowing I was going to have to strike down an entire parade of silly myths.

I put the car in gear and pulled out onto the street as she began. "Obviously you don't sleep during the day," she said.

"We don't sleep at all," I replied.

"So no coffins," she reasoned, flashing me an impish grin. "What about grave dirt?"

I made a scornful sound. "No," I said. "No bats, either. We can't turn into mist, summon wolves, or become large, dog-like demons." Or large, cat-like demons, for that matter, but we weren't discussing _Carmilla_. I had no idea if she had even read it.

"Sunlight?" she asked.

"It doesn't _hurt_ us, but it does make it more obvious that we aren't what we seem," I answered. "That's why we're never at school if it's sunny."

She considered that for a moment. "So you weren't camping!" she concluded. "Or did you go anyway?"

"No," I sighed, "we weren't camping - just hanging around home and pursuing our usual downtime activities."

"Like what?" she wondered.

"You already know some of it, or should be able to guess - music for me, designing clothes or studying biology for Alice, designing houses or sketching out remodels for Esme. Emmett and Jasper play strategy games like chess and Go a lot, and Emmett's been trying to pick out some dirt bikes for us…" I trailed off with a shrug.

"What are you going to do with dirt bikes?" she asked.

"Ride them...?" I replied, wondering what other answer she could possibly have expected.

"Sorry," she said in response to my tone, ducking her head to hide a grin, "it just sounds like such a _teenage boy_ thing to want."

"I _am_ a teenage boy," I pointed out. "So is Jasper - just barely. And Emmett," I rolled my eyes at the thought of my reckless, more-than-slightly-crazy brother, "might as well be."

Isobel was looking at me with one eyebrow raised. "Were you turned into a vampire…" she looked me over, "within the last two or three years?"

"No," I replied, "I was turned in 1918, when I was seventeen."

"Then you definitely don't count as a teenager," Isobel informed me.

"Of course I do," I argued. "The human brain doesn't finish developing until around age twenty-five, you know."

"And what does that have to do with anything?"

"I stopped developing mentally at seventeen," I explained.

Isobel spent a moment studying me critically. "I don't believe it," she declared.

I looked away from the road long enough to give her a confused look. "What do you mean, _you don't believe it_? It's the truth."

"You're much too sophisticated and intelligent for seventeen, Edward," she told me, making me smile at the compliment. Her next words wiped it away. "Plus you're _really_ uptight about a lot of stuff - much more like someone a lot older. There's no way you were like this when you were alive."

I rolled my eyes at her. "Isn't that evidence that I _haven't_ changed much? It's hard for me to give up the mores of the time in which I grew up. As for your other points, my intelligence is a result of being a vampire - we have perfect recall, remember? Tracing patterns in events and information is _much_ easier when you can remember it all _very_ clearly."

"And the sophistication?" she prompted when I paused to think about it.

"I have had a lot more experiences than the average seventeen-year-old," I pointed out more slowly. "It isn't that who I am is set in stone - I still take in new information and respond to it in ways that seem appropriate to me - it's just that the process by which I _make_ my evaluations was frozen in time when I was seventeen."

She eyed me skeptically. "I'm not convinced. It sounds nice, sure, but how would you even be able to reach a conclusion like that with anything resembling objectivity?"

"There's no way for me to prove it," I admitted. "It's simply an explanation that fits my experience of the world and my own life extraordinarily well. It's also one that has been generally accepted by other vampires because they all believe it fits their own experiences, too."

"Hmmm," she breathed, thinking it over, her gaze falling to the dash. "Holy _shit_!" she shouted suddenly.

"What?" I asked, glancing around for a possible threat.

Isobel's hands wrapped around her seatbelt, her knuckles turning white with tension. "Why are you driving so fast?!" she demanded.

Wait...what? I glanced down at the speedometer, the needle resting steadily just under 100 mph. "I'm...not?" I replied a little uncertainly. I had driven almost half again my current speed on my way to Port Angeles earlier in the afternoon.

"You're going almost a hundred miles per hour!"

I let the needle inch a little lower in an attempt to calm her down for a moment, realizing that I hadn't explained a few relevant things about vampiric abilities. "Isobel, it's fine. My reflexes are many, many times better than any human's. I can see in the dark. We won't even get pulled over, because I'll hear any police officers keeping an eye on the highway," I tapped my forehead meaningfully, "long before we encounter them."

"Oh," she said, biting her lip. "Well, but what if there's an accident you are physically incapable of avoiding? Like a deer runs across the road right in front of you and there is simply no way to stop or turn aside in time?"

"First," I said, "you already know my hearing is very good. Deer make a lot of noise when they're running through underbrush. I would probably hear it before it appeared on the road. Second, even if I didn't, I am exceptionally fast and strong. I would kick out the windshield or the back window - or simply tear through the roof of the car - grab you, and pull you to safety." I glanced over at her. "You might be better off not wearing a seatbelt, though. I could snap it easily enough, but it would take an extra fraction of a second."

She chewed on her lip for another moment, and then nodded, slowly unbuckling her seatbelt. "Don't tell Charlie," she said.

I grinned. "That would take entirely too much explaining," I agreed.

She let out a long breath. "Where were we, again?"

"We were arguing about whether I'm seventeen in any way that actually matters," I answered.

"Oh yeah. We can agree to disagree about that for now," she allowed graciously. I snorted. "Neither of us has enough evidence to be persuasive," she continued, ignoring my derision. "Let's see…what else did I want to know?"

More nonsense from _Dracula_ , I was certain. Before she could ask, I began listing off a few more myths. "I have a reflection, garlic and crosses don't bother me, I have no problem with churches or hymns, holy water or whatever doesn't burn me, and I don't think a wooden stake could even penetrate my chest - it certainly wouldn't kill me."

"Good to know," she murmured.

"Just in case you decide you want to kill me?" I teased.

"Not _that_ part," she snorted, bumping me with her elbow. "Oh!" she said, abruptly sitting up in her seat. "What about creating new vampires? Are you restricted to virgins? Is that why all of you are so young?"

"No," I laughed. "Esme was actually married before she was turned - definitely not a virgin. And Rosalie…" I frowned. "She would probably rather tell you her story herself."

Isobel nodded. "How _do_ you make new vampires, then?"

"Venom," I said, indicating my mouth. "Anyone who manages to survive…" I calculated an estimate in my head, "maybe a day?...after being bitten will turn into a vampire."

Her eyes widened. "Does it kill a lot of people?" she wondered.

"Not that," I said quickly. "It's just that...once one of us has - _started_ \- on someone, it's…very difficult to stop."

"Oh, I see," she said, punctuating her words with a nod.

I shook my head, suddenly struck by how calmly she was taking all of this.

"What?" she asked.

"You're just - doesn't this bother you?" I asked, running the hand not holding the steering wheel through my hair.

Her eyes narrowed. "Define _bother_."

"What - ?" I cast an incredulous look her way. "Why would I need to define it? Just use the standard definition."

"It's just a very _broad_ definition," she replied. "I mean, if you asked me," she lowered her voice, apparently trying to mimic me, "'Isobel, does learning vampires exist upend your entire worldview?' I would answer: yes, yes it does. If you asked, 'Isobel, does knowing I'm a vampire and I want to drink your blood make you more wary of me?'" I tensed involuntarily, "I would answer: well, a little."

"A _little_!" I exploded, shocked out of silence. Finding out I wanted to _kill her_ was only worth _a little_ wariness?

"A little," she repeated. "I'm going to try harder not to trip over things when you're around, because I imagine that exposing my blood to the air wouldn't help matters any."

I could only stare at her in disbelief.

"If you asked me," she continued, ignoring my reaction, "'Isobel, do you think it's awful that vampires kill humans?' I would answer: yes, but it sounds like sometimes it's basically an accident - out of your control. Maybe it's wrong that you don't hunt down vampires who do it wantonly, but I don't really know everything about your situation, so…" She shrugged.

I let out a long breath. "You're crazy," I informed her.

"You're melodramatic," she returned calmly.

I growled something incoherent, silently vowing to give Alice a verbal lashing for offering Isobel that point of view in the first place, and then lapsed into silence and I brooded over Isobel's responses to my revelations.

Neither of us spoke again until we reached Forks. "Are you angry at me?" Isobel asked as I slowed to a speed that was more reasonable for driving through town.

"No," I snarled.

She laughed. "Yes, that's very convincing."

"I'm not _angry_ ," I insisted. Not with her, anyway. I risked a glance at her. Unlike so many other moments throughout the evening, her eyes were gentle - softened by some emotion that I didn't quite dare to name. "I don't want you to be hurt, and I _certainly_ don't want to be the one to hurt you."

Biting her lip, she nodded, and then seemed to lose herself in thought for a moment. When she looked at me again, her gaze held an unfamiliar intensity. "Would things be easier for you if I stayed away from you?" she asked flatly.

I swallowed a despairing laugh and felt a shiver of imagined pain run through me. "It would be _safer_ ," I said.

"That's not what I asked," she pointed out. "Would it be _easier_ for you?"

"No," I whispered, hating myself.

We were once again silent for a long moment. I wondered what she was thinking, but didn't dare ask. It wasn't until I pulled the car into her driveway that she spoke again: "I'm glad it wouldn't be easier for you," she told me quietly, "because I don't think it would be easier for me, either."

I groaned. That was terrible. Or amazing. Amazingly terrible. Terribly amazing. Any way I tried to make sense of it, I needed to feel her in my arms again. I flung my door open and flitted around the car - not realizing until I saw Isobel staring at me open-mouthed that she really had no idea how quickly I could move. I opened her door at a more human speed and held out my hand to her.

"You really are _fast_ ," she commented as she accepted my hand.

"I wasn't even trying," I assured her, closing her door and, in the same motion, pulling her closer to me.

"Show-off," she murmured, leaning into me willingly.

This was all wrong - I knew it. I still had so much to tell her that, at this point, any movement on my part towards increased closeness was made on an entirely false premise. It was no better than a willful deception.

Still - there she was looking up at me with her trusting eyes, red cheeks, and hair made a little wild by the wind and occasional droplets of rain the spattered around us. I leaned down and rested my forehead against hers.

That was all. I couldn't possibly justify any more right now, before I had confessed everything.

Isobel had other ideas, though. Before I quite understood what was happening, she had raised herself up on her toes. Her face tipped upwards a little further towards mine - and then our lips met in a light, sweet kiss.

I exhaled in a rush of air as my arm tightened almost involuntarily around her waist, but I didn't deepen the kiss or try to hold her when she moved away a bare moment later. Her entire face was bright red and her teeth dug into her lower lip, but she was also smiling. "Goodnight," she told me in a near-whisper.

"Goodnight," I replied.

She ducked her head and turned towards the door.

"Isobel," I said, something occurring to me.

Her head came up and she turned to look at me.

"When you're dating a vampire, surprising him with a kiss is...somewhat inadvisable. Even if he really enjoys it."

She chuckled. "Did he really enjoy it?" she asked.

"Yes," I replied. "Definitely."

"Maybe he would really enjoy coming over tomorrow morning, too?" she asked. "A couple of old family friend will be stopping by for lunch and watching some game or other on TV with Charlie, but we could spend a couple hours in the morning - I don't know - studying or something?"

"That does sound like the kind of thing I - he - whatever - would enjoy," I agreed.

"Good," she said. "Then I'll see you between, um, maybe nine and ten? You can bring Alice, too, if you want to."

"I don't," I assured her.

She smiled and hugged herself. "Okay. Well, um, goodnight, I guess. Again."

"Goodnight," I replied. She turned away again and disappeared inside - but I heard it when she leaned back against the door and started giggling.


	32. Chapter 31

Note: Here, to make up being late with the last chapter (half a chapter), I'll give you this one early. It's long, but not stupidly so. Expect the next one in a week.

* * *

XXXI.

"Hello?" Angela said.

"Hey, did I wake you up?" I asked her. I didn't think I had - her voice didn't sound like it, anyway.

"Uhhh, no. I'm sort of obligated to attend church Sunday mornings, you know? I actually just finished breakfast."

"Awesome. Do you have a few minutes, then?" _I_ was still in bed, though I hadn't been asleep for at least half an hour - I wasn't really sure. At some point my nighttime dreams of Edward had faded more or less seamlessly into daydreams of Edward, and I couldn't pinpoint the exact moment the changeover had occurred.

"Probably about ten or fifteen minutes," Angela answered. I heard a child yelling somewhere in the background. "Or twenty," she amended. "It sounds like my brothers are playing 'hide the tie' again this morning."

Another time I would have followed up on that to find out what "hide the tie" consisted of, but I needed to talk about Edward _immediately_ or I thought I might have an aneurism. That was a thing, right? Because of stress? Happy, delighted, absolutely giddy stress? "I kissed Edward," I blurted out.

" _What_?!" Angela shrieked - _actually_ shrieked, the way I was fully expecting Jessica to whenever I admitted it to her. "Nothing, Mom!" she called out immediately after. " _Isobel_ ," she hissed, "give me some _warning_. Now start at the beginning!"

I laughed and did as she ordered, telling her about dinner, about the wait staff continuously hitting on Edward while he ignored or glared at them, about our arguments over who would pay, about the racing games at the movie theater, about falling asleep on his shoulder during the movie, and, finally, about the moments outside the house - with all mention of vampires edited out, of course - when it seemed like _he_ would kiss _me_ , and my subsequent resolution to take matters into my own hands when he changed his mind.

"Wow," Angela said when I had finished. I managed to let her sit for a moment in silence while she processed my story, rolling onto my stomach so that I could kick the air with my feet. I seriously had no idea how I had managed to stay still enough to fall asleep last night. It must have been complete exhaustion.

After what seemed like weeks, Angela went on: "When you said you _kissed_ him - I assumed that was just, like, the two of you _shared_ a kiss. I didn't realize _you_ actually kissed _him_." She laughed suddenly. "That's amazing. Isobel, you have some serious ovaries."

"He was being _such_ a tease," I told her, the memory of it making me laugh, too. I couldn't imagine what he had been thinking, getting that close and then just - stopping.

"Was it better than kissing Tyler?" Angela demanded.

" _So much_ better," I confirmed. I remembered the warm jolt of electricity that had spread through my body, making the coldness of his lips inconsequential, and felt renewed butterflies in the pit of my stomach. Angela laughed at me as I buried my face in the mattress and squealed with uncontrollable excitement. "And he's coming over again this morning!" I managed to choke out.

"Oooo," Angela teased, her voice laden with innuendo. "The two of you are already _having breakfast together_ , I see."

Her clear implication was that he didn't need to _come over_ because he had _spent the night_. "Angela!" I gasped, feeling my face heat. Some minister's daughter she was!

She dissolved into giggles, which set me off again. "Okay," I gasped at last. "Okay. I just _really_ needed to tell someone about that, and my mom was out because I haven't really told her much about Edward yet. Before I go shower, though, how did last night with Alice go?"

"Oh, that's right," Angela said. "It went well - _really_ well from Jessica's perspective. I think Jess may have found a new love."

"Alice?" I asked.

"Well, Alice's _closet_ , anyway," Angela chuckled.

"That sounds plausible," I agreed.

"It turned out their shoe sizes are _really_ close," Angela explained. "Jess ended up not buying shoes yesterday because she spent so much on jewelry and figured she could just wear a pair of black heels that she already has."

"Sure," I said. The dress she had ultimately chosen had a black ribbon accenting the waist, so black shoes would probably be good with it.

"But then Alice pulls out these _designer_ black heels, in _real suede_ , with a heel that's made out of some silver metal and embedded with clear crystals that sort of swirl down the length."

"Wow," I said, "that sounds impressive."

" _Beyond_ impressive," Angela agreed. "I don't know anything about shoes, but Jessica just about fainted when she saw them. As if that wasn't enough, Alice had this...I don't know whether to call it a necklace or...maybe a collar? Anyway, it had a bunch of these delicate silver chains and little clear gemstones sort of...hanging down? But like in swoopy half-circles. I can't explain it. It was beautiful, though, like something you'd see someone on TV wearing. Jessica took one look at it and announced she's returning all the jewelry she bought, because no one will notice any of it if she wears Alice's necklace. Her mom will be happy about that."

"What about you and June?" I asked.

"Well, Alice let June borrow a pair of ruby and gold earrings - and I'm reasonably certain they're _real_ rubies - along with a matching bracelet. She found me these really pretty, dangly pearl earrings that definitely looked vintage, and then a cuff made with more pearls."

"Sounds like she completely outfitted you guys," I said, shaking my head. Edward might object to hanging out with my friends, but, considering how much she seemed to like dressing people up, I thought I had probably done Alice a favor.

"That's not even all," Angela snorted. "She insisted on taking my dress with her so that she could take it in around the bust - it was a little too big - and she took Jessica's to raise the hem a couple of inches. She was just...like...a little fashion-dispensing _hurricane_."

Alice was a little like a hurricane no matter _what_ she was doing, so I had no doubt Angela's assessment was accurate.

Angela's mom called her to get ready to leave after that, so we got off the phone. I went to take my shower, and then spent way too long trying to decide if I should spend way too long trying to decide what to wear.

In the end I chose not to - whatever Edward's reason was for liking me, it clearly had nothing to do with my appearance generally or my fashion sense more specifically. Besides, I didn't want Billy Black's son - what was his name again? - to mistakenly think I was trying to look good for _him_. I pulled on my usual jeans, a long-sleeved tee, and a sweatshirt I'd stolen from my mom after she had lost interest in the band whose name was printed across the front.

Charlie had claimed the bathroom when I emerged from my room, so I ran downstairs to start coffee and make something for breakfast. It was only a little after eight, which was good - even after working late, Charlie was a pretty early riser. I hadn't been awake to warn him that Edward would be coming over, so, though I didn't expect any objections, I wanted to make sure he knew ahead of time this morning.

I was busy grilling pancakes when Charlie came down and stuck his head in the kitchen. "Morning, Bells," he said. "Smells good."

I flipped a pancake onto the plate I was using for the ones I finished, stuck it back in the warmed oven, and then poured Charlie a cup of coffee and handed it him before answering. "Morning, Dad," I replied.

"Thanks," he told me, taking a sip from his mug and leaning against the wall. "Did you have a good day yesterday?"

My mind instantly went to Edward and I grabbed the bowl of pancake batter quickly as an excuse to hide my smile from Charlie. "Yeah," I said, "I did. Edward ended up driving me home last night. I invited him to come over this morning before Billy gets here. You know, to study."

"To study," he repeated wryly, and I knew I wasn't fooling him even a little. "Sounds good, Bells. He's welcome to stay for lunch if he wants to. You could introduce him to Jake."

Jake - Jacob Black. _That_ was Billy's son's name. I remembered Jacob's sisters a lot better. The last time I had seen them, I had been twelve - still at an age when boys were more annoying than fascinating, and his sisters had hardly been interested in inviting their little brother to hang out with us.

"I dunno, Dad, that might be weird since none of them know each other." And, more importantly, since Edward wouldn't eat anything. "I think Edward also mentioned something he had to do this afternoon, too. But I'll ask."

"Alright. Anything I can do to help you with breakfast?"

"You could get the sausage out of the freezer. After that, I think I've got it," I replied.

"Sure thing," he said, crossing to the fridge, retrieving the package of sausage, and then depositing it on the counter beside me before leaving me with a rough kiss on the head.

I finished the pancakes and then sliced up an apple and a couple of sweet bell peppers while I waited for the sausage to cook. Charlie wasn't a big fan of maple syrup - he preferred his pancakes spread with peanut butter and then covered with thinly-sliced apple. I liked maple syrup just fine, but would feel vaguely guilty if my entire breakfast consisted of sugar and fat - the latter courtesy of the sausages, of course. Thus - the bell peppers. Anyway, the bright yellow and red made for a pretty garnish - pretty enough that I might even coax Charlie into eating a slice or two in spite of his tendency to regard vegetables with the kind of suspicion he usually reserved for newly-paroled convicts.

Over breakfast, I gave Charlie more details about my day with the girls - leaving out the part where I had gotten lost. It might not remain secret for long - this was a small town, after all - but I didn't see a reason to address it prematurely. First, everything had turned out fine. Second, I was reasonably certain that I would have been able to handle it even if Edward _hadn't_ shown up. In retrospect, the whole encounter actually gave me confidence that the training and equipment Charlie had given me was both sound and practical.

Even though his eyes glazed over halfway through my discussion of the clothes I had ended up buying and the dresses my friends had tried on - which was about three minutes in - Charlie still continued nodding in an attempt to seem interested until I was finished. I wondered with private amusement what he would have done if I had turned out like Jessica - who probably could have gone on at least five or six times longer than I had - and was glad for his sake that I wasn't a terribly girly-girl.

When we had finished eating, I collected our dishes and began washing them - not so much because they _needed_ to be immediately washed as because it was getting close to nine and I didn't want to sit around nervously anticipating Edward's arrival. I had, after all, stipulated _between_ nine and ten, which covered an entire hour, and -

Someone knocked on the door as I was scrubbing the second plate. "Got it!" I called, immediately dropping everything I was holding into the sink and pausing only long enough to turn off the water and dry my hands before rushing to the front door.

I yanked it open and there he was - my beautiful vampire, looking absolutely delicious as he leaned against the door frame and smirked at me. He, I noted with some embarrassment, had chosen to dress up a bit. His dark gray v-necked sweater - worn over chinos with a collared shirt peeking out from underneath - made his eyes look like they were made of topaz.

His smirk broadened, and I realized that, first, I was staring at him and, second, he had said "good morning" and I had been too dazed to respond.

"Don't leave the boy standing out there, Isobel," Charlie admonished from the living room. "Invite him in."

My face heated, and I opened the door a little wider and stepped aside, gesturing for Edward to come in without trying to find the words.

Charlie got up as Edward stepped into living room. "Good morning, Chief Swan, sir," Edward said. His formal politeness made me want to both laugh and roll my eyes, and I wondered briefly why I liked him so much. Old-fashioned was _so_ not my thing.

Then he shot a little glance and a smile my way, and I remembered. He might be old-fashioned, but he was also intelligent, sweet, and stubborn enough to make arguing fun - and kissing him was ridiculously awesome.

My dad obviously loved Edward's manners, though. While his appreciation of Edward might have started when he saved my life, Charlie was the sort of person who _would_ appreciate old-fashioned politeness and deference. He clapped Edward on the shoulder, looking satisfied by the fact that Edward withstood it without so much as swaying in place. I supposed that was another piece of Charlie's appreciation. Men and their silly chest-pounding games. "It's just 'Charlie' to you, Edward," he said.

"Yes, sir, Charlie," Edward replied, clearly earning him even more points in my father's eyes.

"So what are you helping my daughter study?" Charlie asked.

Hmm, crap - we hadn't actually discussed that, mostly because "studying" was a cover for "spending time together."

I had forgotten how much practice Edward had at lying plausibly, though. "Spanish, sir," he answered smoothly. "I'm fluent, you see, and Isobel wanted someone to converse with."

That's right - I had mentioned it briefly earlier in the week. Had it only been a few days? It seemed like an eternity.

Thankfully it was a lie that sounded just like me, earning me a speculative glance from Charlie as he obviously started to wonder if we really _were_ going to be studying after all. "Well, I won't keep you kids," he said. "If you like football, though, Edward, an old fishing partner and his son are coming to watch the Pro Bowl later today. You can stay if you want to."

"I do like football," Edward replied, the perfect degree of regret coloring his tone, "but my parents are planning some work on the garage and I promised I would help them take measurements this afternoon."

That answer satisfied Charlie, too. If Edward's goal was to make the best impression possible on my father, he was doing a damned good job. Maybe he'd had Alice look at the conversation beforehand.

Charlie sent us up to my room with a warning to leave the door open, which made me roll my eyes. As if I would do anything with a boy when my father was _right downstairs_. That would just be rude to everyone involved. Besides, forcing me to leave my door open wouldn't to deter me from doing anything I wanted to do in the long run. Charlie _had_ to know about the Cullen "siblings" and their relationships, so he should know that if I wanted to do something he wouldn't approve of, I could always visit Edward. Moreover, he worked weird hours sometimes, which would give me plenty of time to do whatever I wanted in my _own_ room if that was what I preferred.

It was possible that Charlie and I needed to have a serious talk about relationships and sex.

For now it didn't matter, though, so I let it go and led Edward upstairs.

I pushed the door open and led the way inside. Edward paused at the entrance, looking around with interest, but I cut his inspection short by turning and throwing my arms around him. "Good morning," I told him - finally.

"Good morning," he chuckled in reply, wrapping his own arms almost tentatively around my waist.

I looked up at him, hoping he would kiss me, but he just removed one hand from my back and brushed my cheek lightly with his knuckles - which was admittedly fine as far as it went, since even that little touch woke the butterflies in my stomach and made me blush. But then he released me immediately after, which was the opposite of butterflies-in-the-stomach-inducing.

It seemed Charlie wasn't the only person I needed to talk to about what was appropriate at various stages of a relationship. Edward's opinion on the subject seemed like it might be more in line with my father's than with mine. If he was going to try pushing some crazy-ass values from 1918 on me…

We were going to have a problem.

Edward either didn't notice or ignored my displeasure, though, instead looking around my room again, smiling as his eyes fell on my shelves and the books piled on my nightstand. Without any prompting, he took my desk chair, leaving the bed to me - even though it was more than big enough for two people to sit side by side on.

Aaaand the problem appeared to be growing.

Shit, I thought for the first time, what if vampires were asexual?

But he'd said he enjoyed being kissed. Did asexual people like being kissed? I had no idea. It wasn't something it had ever occurred to me to look into.

"I can see why you need a new bookshelf," he said, nodding at the books I hadn't had space to put away anywhere.

"No, you don't," I replied, trying to sound calm rather than pouty. "This is only a small fraction of my books. The rest are still in Arizona." That sounded natural, right? Okay - so I had pictured this morning differently, but I needed to let go of those kinds of expectations. Edward was right - there was still a lot I didn't know about him and about vampires. Maybe I should try not to get too invested in us - in there _being_ an "us" - yet.

 _Ha_.

Edward raised one eyebrow at me. "A _small_ fraction?" he repeated. "Do you have space for enough shelves for the rest?"

"Probably not," I allowed, "but I'll appreciate having a _better_ selection, even if I can't have _all_ the books I want."

He smiled. "Is there enough space in the entire house for _all_ the books you want?"

I tried to return his smile, but wasn't quite certain I had succeeded. "Maybe," I said, and then decided that it sounded curt. "I suppose...it might depend on whether I had to keep any of the rest of the furniture."

He chuckled, the sound sending a warm thrill up my spine that contrasted jarringly with the knot that had formed in my stomach. "Carlisle has a good library. I'm sure he wouldn't mind if you borrowed a book or two occasionally."

"Cool," I replied, biting my lip and then immediately releasing it, certain that he would know a nervous gesture if he saw it. "I'll...keep that in mind."

Edward nodded, his eyes wandering away from me as his smile became a little more rigid. "So...tell me about these family friends who are coming over later. Have you known them long?"

There was an odd note in his voice - as though he didn't entirely approve, but that couldn't be right, could it? Maybe he had just noticed my relative lack of engagement in this conversation. "Charlie and Billy have been friends since they were boys," I told him.

"And...Billy's son?" he prompted.

I blinked at him, confused by his interest - and then understood all in a flash. Edward was _jealous_. Okay. Right. So a hello kiss and _sitting_ on a bed together weren't appropriate to Mr. Determined To Be A Gentleman, but jealousy was totally fair game? What was his _problem_?

I felt my chin go up a fraction of an inch. "You can stay and be introduced, if you like," I told him a little coolly. I really had no idea what he would see - I hadn't so much as laid eyes on Jacob Black in more than five years.

A part of me suddenly hoped that Jacob was hot, though.

Edward's nostrils flared. "What is he like?" he asked.

"I wouldn't know," I told Edward impatiently. "The last time I saw him, we were both children."

Edward let out a breath, and then went unnaturally still before casting a sheepish look my way. "You're angry," he said.

I let my glare say everything that needed to be said in response to his keen observation.

"I mean," he said, " _why_ are you angry? Because I asked about your - "

" _Because_ ," I cut him off, "the guy I'm apparently dating came over this morning, greeted me with a half-hearted hug, and - "

"It wasn't _half-hearted_ ," he protested with a frown.

I ignored the interruption and continued. " - and then decided to sit just about as far away from me as the room allows, _and then_ has the nerve to try interrogating me about some childhood friend whom I haven't seen in _years_."

He buried his hands in his hair. "I thought - " he began, and then shook his head cutting himself off. "I'm territorial," he admitted in a low voice. " _Vampires_ are territorial," he clarified even more quietly.

"Are vampires also _jerks_?" I hissed.

"Yes," he answered with a short, unhappy laugh.

Okay, so the answer to _that_ was obvious. Blood-sucking undead monsters, most of whom went around killing people like it meant nothing? Yeah, probably could be classified under the general label of "jerk."

Edward raised his eyes to meet mine, his expression miserable. "As I keep trying to remind you, you don't know everything you need to know yet. I can't - I _shouldn't_ \- take advantage of your ignorance."

I bit my lip and looked away, frightened - maybe because Alice wasn't around to accuse Edward of being too dramatic - that perhaps he really had done something unforgivable. Somehow, though, it didn't make me want to shy away from him. If I learned something I couldn't get over tomorrow - then maybe I wanted _today_. "What if I want you to?" I asked, my voice coming out in a croak. I swallowed a couple of times, trying to moisten a mouth and throat gone dry with fear.

Edward stared at me for a long moment. "I can't do that," he said slowly. "But…" his voice dropped, "my track record for denying you what you want is abysmal."

I watched him for a moment, trying to decipher his meaning, and then rose slowly and approached him. He watched me, not moving - not even breathing, as far as I could tell. Maybe vampires didn't need to, though it was obvious that he _could_. His face tilted up towards me when I finally stood right in front of him, with my legs pressed against his, but I didn't kiss him. It seemed like that might make him feel guilty, and I didn't want to make him feel guilty.

Instead I sat on his lap, wrapping my arms around him. He responded by looping one arm loosely around my waist and laying his head on my shoulder with a sigh that was either resignation or relief. I closed my eyes as he pressed his nose to my neck, and my hand tightened on his shoulder when his lips brushed a brief, furtive kiss against the same spot. His skin was cold, but that wasn't what sent delicious shivers up my spine. The butterflies in my stomach had turned into something more like a tightening sensation, and had moved lower. Prior to this moment, my entire experience with spontaneously wet panties had been firmly rooted in the unglamorous realm of unexpectedly early periods. Edward's lips against my neck gave me a crash course in something completely different.

He sighed again and leaned back, pulling away from me. "Don't ever think I'm being half-hearted with you, Isobel."

His eyes and voice were doing that melting, caramelly thing again, but for once I didn't mind. "Okay," I agreed easily. Even though I had accused him of lacking enthusiasm in greeting me, I should have known it was something else. The one thing Edward definitively didn't lack was passion - even if most of it was bent towards brooding guilt almost all the time.

"Good," he said, probably pleased that I hadn't argued for once. Then his smile became a smirk. "Ahora, Señorita Isobel - ¿cómo estás hoy?"

I stared at him for a moment before I started laughing. "Really?" I asked. "We're _really_ going to study Spanish?"

He grinned and shook his finger at me. "En español, señorita."

Since we were _actually_ going to study and since I didn't want Charlie to find me cuddled up in Edward's lap - which would be uncomfortable all around - I moved back to the bed and let Edward ask me about my morning and what I had done. When we finished with that, he started asking about things I liked - my favorite movie, flower, color, and on and on. He also usually required me to explain why things were my favorites. It wouldn't have been very good practice if all my answers had consisted of a single word, after all. I didn't have the vocabulary to respond properly to everything, but he supplied the words as I needed them and let me struggle ungrammatically through verb tenses I didn't know yet before rephrasing what I had said and explaining why. It was probably actually really helpful, even if it wasn't the way I had pictured spending my morning.

Charlie walked by my room a couple of times during the hour and a half we spent conversing, probably more out of a sense of obligation than for any other reason. It was pretty obvious that we were talking and not making out or having sex or whatever suspicious activity the typical parent feared.

Just before eleven, I decided I should probably get started on lunch, so I called a halt to our study session. Edward followed me willingly downstairs, though he declined to help me as I began cutting up vegetables for the fish stew I was making. It seemed fitting to me to use some of the spoils of the fishing trips Charlie and Billy still somehow managed to take together on a fairly regular basis.

Instead of helping - which was fine, since he claimed not to remember anything useful about human food - Edward sat at the breakfast bar in the dining room, across from where I was working, and explained the complicated dynamics of movie-watching in his family and his shared quest with Alice to put together a marathon of movies Jasper would be able to follow without needing to ask a million questions. I found myself laughing at Edward's description of Jasper's ability to get so completely wrapped up in his own thoughts that he tuned everything else out. "Sometimes I swear he can imagine a piece of wood he's working with and then picture every knife-stroke that will be necessary to make it into what he wants it to be."

"That's really cool," I told Edward. "Do you think Alice would show me her chess set if I asked?" He had described Jasper's various artistic pursuits to me. The Cullens sounded like such an interesting family, all of them with his or her own specialty - or sometimes multiple specialties. Carlisle was both a doctor _and_ something of a philosopher, for instance, and, besides the interest in architecture that she had admitted to, Edward had assured me that Esme was also a fine electrical engineer. Emmett's specialty surprised me the most: apparently he spoke more languages than anyone else in the family, Carlisle included.

It made me wonder how I - what I might - but - that was assuming _a lot_ , and - and no one had asked if I wanted to be a vampire.

Oh shit, if Edward and I ended up _really_ liking each other - was that on the table?

"I think you'd have to physically fight Alice off to _avoid_ seeing her chess set," Edward assured me, unaware of the getting-ahead-of-myself turn my thoughts had taken.

I pulled them roughly back into line. "Good. I'll just make sure not to resist when she drags me off to look at it. And what about you? Will you play for me?"

"Any time you want me to," he replied.

"Oh!" I said as the mention of his music made me remember what I had _completely_ forgotten - namely the reason I had gone off on my own the night before and gotten lost in the first place.

"What?" Edward asked, glancing around a little warily.

"I have something for you," I told him, stumbling over to the sink to wash the raw fish off my hands. "Give me just a second."

My purse was upstairs in my room, so I ran up and fished around until I found the CD I had gotten - still encased in the plastic bag from the music store. Charlie glanced up from the TV - he was already immersed in the pre-game show for the football thing they'd be watching later - and gave me a wry smile in response to my grin.

I got back to the kitchen and deposited the bag in Edward's hands. "This is for you," I said.

He turned it over, looking confused. "Why?" he asked.

"Why not?" I replied.

"Because it's not a special occasion, and I didn't get anything for you?"

"You bought my movie ticket last night," I reminded him, "if you have to keep score. But you shouldn't. I got it for you because I wanted to."

"Alright," he said, still looking bemused, and reached into the bag. He came out holding the receipt and chuckled. "Isobel, you're supposed to - "

I felt my face heat as his eyes fell on what had been written on the back, and I reached out and snatched the bit of paper away from him, crumpling it into a ball. "Uh, that was nothing," I said, hoping he would let it go and not ask.

No such luck. His eyes narrowed and fixed on the fist where I held the offending object, so I put my hand behind my back.

"Isobel…" he began, a warning in his voice.

"Okay, look, the guy at the store last night asked me out," I admitted. "But I wasn't ever going to _go_ out with him. Come on, I was there buying a gift _for you_."

"But you didn't tell him no," Edward said, giving me a dark look.

"How do you know?" I demanded.

"Alice and I started at the music store last night," he told me, keeping his voice down, though the low volume did nothing to hide his displeasure. "I was more than close enough to hear - and the fact that he gave you his number was _very much_ on his mind."

"Well - maybe I didn't say 'no' outright," I hissed, "but I _was_ really surprised by the whole thing, and I did tell him that you weren't _exactly_ my boyfriend, with the implication being - "

A muscle in Edward's cheek twitched.

"What was I _supposed_ to say?" I growled - since I couldn't yell - throwing up my hands in exasperation. "We hadn't even been on a date yet!"

Edward made a frustrated sound and ran a hand through his hair. "No. I know. I'm sorry. I'm...being unreasonable."

"Yes, you are," I said, glad we could finally agree on something. I took a deep breath. "I wouldn't have even kept the receipt, but...things...interfered and kept me from remembering to throw it away." An oversight I could correct now - I tossed the balled-up bit of paper into the trash.

Edward's face was still mimicking the Romantic ideal - that is, melancholy and brooding - so I leaned across the counter between us, placing my hands carefully to avoid crushing any of my fish, and knocked my forehead gently against his. It still hurt a little - it seemed like maybe vampire skin and bones and whatever were all a lot firmer than comparable human structures. Maybe I should have realized that, though - hadn't he made some passing remark about the improbability of a wooden stake penetrating his chest?

That was, however, inconsequential just now. I wanted to wipe that forlorn look off his face. "Come on, Edward - do you really think my affection is that fragile? That I'd just forget about you because some random guy asked me out?"

"You went out with Tyler," he pointed out.

"Which was before I knew you pretty much at _all_ ," I countered. "Besides, maybe you had reason to feel insecure before what happened last night became a date, but _now_? Really?"

I sort of wanted him to lean forward a little more and kiss me, but I also thought that probably wasn't going to happen. And, as expected, he didn't move - just smiled a bit ruefully. "Didn't I admit to being unreasonable?"

"Maybe I want you to do more than admit to it. Maybe I want you to _stop_ it," I said lightly - even though it wasn't a joke and I really did want that.

His smile widened a little. "I would _also_ like that. Do you have any ideas on how I might go about it?"

I grinned at him. "Sure. Lesson one: stop assuming everything will be awful, and instead assume it will be awesome."

My advice at least made him laugh, even if he also looked away from me. "Thank you, Isobel. Truly wisdom for the ages."

"That's what I'm here for," I agreed, straightening and giving him a thumbs up. "Now look at what I got for you already."

Edward _finally_ reached into the bag and pulled out the CD, his head tilting to one side as he examined the cover before turning it over to look at the back. "This seems really interesting," he told me, "though I've never heard of the artist."

"She's a local composer," I explained. "I listened to a couple of her tracks from an earlier album, and I thought they were great."

"Taking on mantras this way seems like a unique approach," he said, "and Carlisle will probably appreciate it - he's been studying ancient Sanskrit and the Mahabharata for the last year or so."

"Oh yeah? That's cool." If the whole family had super-hearing, it was probably helpful if they appreciated each other's musical selections.

He smiled at me, his eyes meltingly beautiful and his voice, when he spoke, enough to make me shiver with pleasure. "Thank you, Isobel. I can't wait to listen to it."

I felt myself blushing and bent over my neglected fish. "You're welcome," I muttered. He didn't reply, but, when I risked a glance at him, he was smirking at me.

After I had finished cutting up the fish, it was time to start on the actual cooking and I didn't have much attention to spare for Edward. Thankfully he didn't seem to mind too much - though he asked the occasional question about what I was doing and why, he mostly let me work.

I managed to get everything in the pot and boiling a couple of minutes before the doorbell rang, indicating that our guests had arrived. Charlie answered the door as I rinsed and dried my hands, and then I followed him out to meet the Blacks. Edward came with me, his hand on the small of my back probably intended to make it clear that we were _together_ for Jacob and anyone else who might care. I certainly expected that Charlie would take note of it.

Oh well. At the rate things were going, we were going to officially be a couple soon enough. It wasn't like Charlie objected to Edward, anyway.

"And here's my Isobel," Charlie said as I appeared in the entryway, sounding so inordinately proud that I felt my face heat.

Billy was seated in the wheelchair that Charlie had informed me he had been confined to for the last year, since losing a leg to diabetes. A boy about my age, who had to be Jacob, stood a little off to one side, eyeing me with interest.

A smile lit Billy's face as his eyes settled on me. "Well, well, she certainly doesn't take after you, Charlie. That's got to be a blessing."

He was wrong - I certainly didn't get my dark hair, eyes, and ghostly-pale skin from my golden-brown haired, green-eyed, golden-skinned mother - but Charlie nodded. "She got Renee's looks and smarts, that's for sure, but I think she's a little more grounded."

"A _lot_ more grounded," I corrected, going to Billy and bending to give him a hug, before turning and shaking my finger at my father. "And they're your smarts, too, because you're every bit as intelligent as Renee." Maybe not as creative, but Charlie thought deeply where she thought broadly. I hoped I was reasonably capable of both.

"Notice she doesn't mention the looks, though," Billy teased Charlie with a grin. "Here's someone you might remember but won't recognize," he continued, turning his attention to me, before Charlie could come back with something. He gestured towards the boy I had noticed before. "Say hello to Isobel, Jacob."

Jake grinned, his teeth very white against his coppery skin. "Hey, Isobel."

"Hey, Jake," I replied with a smile of my own. "You're a lot taller than I remember you. Less inclined to pull hair, too, I hope."

He laughed, displaying those white teeth again. I had, however briefly, hoped for Jacob to be hot, and it seemed my transitory wish had been granted. Though obviously not as attractive as Edward, Jacob had grown up really well. He was a year younger than I was, but his shoulders were already pretty broad - broader than Edward's, though Edward had an inch or two on him as well as the whole vampiric strength thing. Jake's face was still a bit round and boyish, but there were hints of a strong jaw and high cheekbones that were probably already causing girls in his immediate vicinity to hyperventilate on a regular basis.

"Rachel and Rebecca haven't complained about hair-pulling in several years, so I think you're safe," he reassured me, still grinning.

"Well, I should probably introduce you to Edward." I turned and beckoned him to come closer. "He's, uh - "

Crap. I was fairly certain, based on our earlier conversation about the guy at the music store, that Edward didn't want to be introduced as my _friend_. We had only just started dating, though. How did one convey _dating someone_ without necessarily _being a couple_?

Oh, wait - maybe I had just answered my own question.

"We're - " I began again, but Edward had already started speaking in the split second it had taken me to decide how to phrase what we were.

"I'm her boyfriend," he said.

His arm had also somehow found its way really firmly around my waist. It seemed he was done with the subtler hand-on-the-back thing.

"Uh, right," I agreed, wondering what on Earth he was thinking, but really not wanting to argue about it in front of anyone else. "My boyfriend. Edward, this is Billy Black and his son Jacob." I nodded vaguely in their direction, still trying to wrap my head around what had just happened.

Charlie, I realized, was watching me with raised eyebrows and I blushed. "He's Dr. Cullen's son," Charlie told Billy. "Good kid. I invited him to stay - "

"But I have to get home and help my parents with some work around the house," Edward finished smoothly. "In fact, I should probably get going."

"I'll walk you out to your car," I told him, grabbing his hand and hauling him towards the door.

"Nice meeting you," Jake called after us as I pulled him outside.

"Wish I could say the same," Edward muttered in response - too quietly for Jake to hear, but loud enough for me, which I could only assume was intentional.

We got around the side of the garage, out of sight of the front door and mostly hidden from the living room window, and I stopped. "Okay," I began.

I didn't get any further. Before I could continue, Edward pressed me up against the garage door and covered my lips with his.

While I didn't have a problem with this series of events _per se_ , I did find it a little bit confusing considering the issues we had spent the entire morning at odds over. Yes - it was definitely confusing. Also nice, though. _Really_ nice. It was - shivery and fluttery and maybe a little tingly, and any other good feeling I could come up with. I never wanted it to end. It _couldn't_ end. Touching him was somehow suddenly as vital as air or water.

His lips moved against mine, maybe a little firmer than my fantasies had once called for in a boy's lips, and definitely a bit too cold, but also just perfect. I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him closer, my body trying to meld itself to his without any conscious direction from me.

And that was, of course, the moment he chose to pull away. I made a little, involuntary sound of protest that may have been something similar to a whimper, and he groaned, unwinding my arms from around his neck and putting a little space between us. I discovered that I was breathing hard.

"What - " I began, trying to gather my thoughts. I dimly remembered wanting to know something before - all that - had happened. "Why - um...but - " Suddenly one very important memory managed to surface. "Are you my _boyfriend_?" I squeaked.

Edward laughed nervously and ran a hand through his hair. Oh God, he was so beautiful. I clasped my hands together behind my back before I lost control of them and grabbed him.

His voice, when he answered, was laughably uncertain. "I am if - if you want me to be."

There was really no way to reply to that enthusiastically enough, so I seized the front of his shirt and pulled him down for another kiss.

He didn't let it - or me - get quite so out of hand this time, breaking things off after a few seconds. My thoughts, too, managed to remain collected together in - an admittedly slightly untidy - pile. "Okay," I said as he backed off enough to allow me some space to think, "so when, exactly, did this become a, er, more committed sort of relationship?"

He gave a low growl. "I suppose it began when you reminded me that the wretched music store clerk hit on you, and ended when - " he gave a delicate cough, "when I caught _your friend_ Jacob admiring your posterior."

It took me a moment to understand his overly-polite phrasing. "When was Jake checking out my ass?" I demanded.

"If you'll recall, you bent over to hug his father," Edward reminded me.

Oh. "Okay, that's a little uncomfortable, but can you really blame him? He's only sixteen, Edward. Don't all teenage boys check out girls' - "

" _I_ don't," he snapped.

I bit my lip to avoid laughing at him. So touchy. "Well, you still shouldn't blame him. I mean, it's not like he saw anything you didn't get to, and I promise that you'll get plenty of chances to - "

"I wasn't _looking_ ," he practically gasped, apparently too shocked even to be offended this time. "I _did_ see," he admitted after a brief moment of thought, "but only because I was monitoring _Jacob's_ thoughts."

"Well, that sounds like your own fault," I admonished him. "I'm pretty sure that as my _boyfriend_ , you're allowed to check out my ass."

His eyes went wide, and for a moment his mouth worked without any sound coming out. "That's - " he said at last. "I - that's not - I wouldn't - "

"Fine, fine, do what you want," I interrupted, rolling my eyes. "But just so you know, I'm going to be checking out _your_ ass every chance I get."

This time he went completely - and I mean _completely_ \- still. Had it not been for his golden eyes and bronzy hair, I might have taken him for a statue. I wondered: were strokes a concern for vampires? I certainly hoped not.

After a long moment, he closed his eyes and let out a slow breath. "Isobel," he said carefully, "you are _completely_ impossible."

I thought about making it worse by asking if he _liked_ my ass, but decided I had courted enough vampire strokes for one day. Instead I said, "You apparently like me that way."

"I apparently _really_ like you this way," he agreed, bringing his hand up to caress my cheek lightly.

I caught it and kissed his cold palm. "Okay, well, even though I _really like_ you, too, I should probably get back inside."

He nodded. "Do me one favor, Isobel?"

"Sure," I agreed.

"Don't bend over around Jacob."

I laughed at his pained expression. "I'll do my best, but you're seriously being ridiculous, Edward." I sidled away from him, since he made no move to release me from the place where he had backed me up against the garage door. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"I'm not being ridiculous," he argued as I walked away. "Would you want Jessica to admire _me_?"

Want her to? Was he kidding? If I didn't think her likely to expire of jealousy, I would have happily _pointed out_ Edward-related views worth admiring. He was stunning, and stunning people were fun to look at. I wouldn't deny _anyone_ the chance to _look_.

Touching was, of course, another matter entirely.

I doubted he was ready to hear something like that, though, so I just laughed again and went inside.


	33. Chapter 32

Note: So here's the deal: in an attempt to avoid what happened with Chapter 30 (hereafter known as "the stupidly long chapter"), I'm in the midst of trying to break up what happens next. I'm not actually sure it's going to work, though - there may not be enough material for three chapters. If it _does_ work, I'll update as planned on Saturday. If it _doesn't_ , I'm going to need to do a bunch of rewriting and you'll get a Stupidly Long Chapter (reprise) whenever I get finished.

* * *

XXXII.

I began the drive home elated.

The fact that Isobel had agreed to be _my girlfriend_ made me want to cheer - or perhaps run door-to-door telling everyone who would listen. Just remembering her warm, soft little body pressed against mine was enough to make me feel like blood once again flowed through my veins - and like that imaginary blood was boiling. She was so beautiful, and her sweetness so perfectly tempered by her quick temper and willingness to speak her mind. Her views of propriety often shocked me, but I found her more engaging than I ever had anyone else.

It was odd that should be true, wasn't it? More than a hundred years on Earth, and Isobel was the first woman to enthrall me.

I tried to decide what it was about her that was so different. Other women whom I had encountered were similarly bold - Jessica was a good example - and yet I found their brazenness tawdry and a little sordid. Isobel was more like a sudden cold wind - new and unexpected, yet also refreshing.

Was it only because I already loved her, though?

No, I decided. One difference was that Jessica, under the guise of simple honesty, got a thrill from talking about sex and bragging about her own sexuality to others. Honesty, in Isobel's interactions with me, was not a pretense. Nor was she equally honest with everyone. Her sense of propriety _differed_ from mine, but she had decided upon and followed her own rules. I admired that about her - she walked a line between too much order and perfect chaos, rejecting rules as she saw fit, but substituting them with guidelines that made sense to her rather than simply living without rules at all.

In fact, she was perhaps more serious than anyone I had ever met about following her own rules.

Now that the shock had worn off, I could smile over her declaration that she would be admiring my body at every available opportunity. I saw little beauty in it myself - an unnatural thing shaped from some unknown substance in the likeness of a human but without a human's warmth or spirit. It wasn't uncommon for humans to find us beautiful - if usually intimidating - though. And I could hope that Isobel's admiration was due partly to her affection for me, not merely a reflection of her aesthetic preferences.

As for her suggestion that it might be my right to similarly admire her - well, she didn't know yet what a dangerous proposition that might prove.

Remembering those moments with Isobel led naturally to memories of why we had been discussing body parts worth admiring in the first place. Some of my elation faded as I recalled the fact that she was, at this very moment, having lunch with Jacob Black. He clearly agreed with his father's assessment of Isobel's beauty, and felt that, as an old family friend, he had some kind of claim on her. Ultimately, the boy was little better than Tyler Crowley. Why would her father, usually so protective, elevate a reprobate like Jacob Black to the level of trusted family friend?

I sighed at myself, knowing I wasn't being entirely fair. Isobel had already explained to me that Billy and her father were boyhood friends. And it wasn't Jacob Black whom Charlie Swan had deemed a fit suitor for his lovely handful of a daughter.

Perhaps, as Isobel had tried to persuade me, Jacob's interest was harmless - entirely due to the hormones that made human adolescence such a roller coaster of emotion. Even so, fighting off other men who wanted to steal _my girlfriend_ was beginning to seem like it might be a full time job.

Not that Isobel would want me to bother with any such thing.

And - she might not want me to bother her at all after tomorrow.

The last flickers of my euphoria sputtered and went out. It always came back to that, didn't it? I was being one person for her, when I was actually an entirely different person, and that person was a monster.

I kept placing myself _above_ all these human men who wanted her. It was true that I loved and wanted her more - but how could that possibly matter in the face of what I had done in the past and might do to her in the future?

This might be the shortest romantic relationship in the history of the world.

There was, of course, someone whose advice I might seek in order to try and avert that conclusion - but was that right? Was Isobel better off with me, or was using the resources at my disposal a means of cheating a just fate? In the back of my mind, there always lurked the fear that using the edge that Alice could give me was unfair and unjustifiable.

Of course, Alice felt differently. She was waiting for me when I got home, blocking the front door. As soon as I was fully visible to her through the windshield of my car, she leveled me with a glare and I wondered what kind of argument she had seen us having. "Edward," she said as soon as I emerged from my car. "Stop being an idiot. We need to talk strategy."

I shook my head, not quite ready to reject her help entirely, but feeling the need to think it over more first. But she was already mentally spreading out her visions, getting ready to show me the different ways the future might go.

This wasn't a conversation I wanted to have, I realized suddenly. I didn't know how to make her understand why, though. I didn't understand it entirely myself - only that it made me feel trapped by something that felt perilously similar to dishonesty. I - should be judged based on what I had _done_ , not based on how well I implemented one of Alice's strategies. In spite of my earlier reflection on the matter a few days ago, it seemed I _didn't_ agree with Isobel's potential assessment of my use of Alice's powers for my own benefit. I didn't see it as considerate.

I saw it as unavoidably fraudulent.

It didn't matter, of course, that Alice was blocking the front door to the house - there was a back entrance and, worst-case scenario, I could always climb the building and slip in through my own window. Blocking the door was a symbolic rather than practical gesture.

More difficult was my inability to fully get away from her _mentally_ as long as I remained at home. Alice could make herself very loud when she wanted to.

But I was fast - faster than any of my siblings. Any of them might hunt me down by scent, but if Alice tried to do that or to use her visions, I could always run away again. If I decided I truly didn't want to be found, there were ways to confuse both regular and irregular vampiric senses. If I hid out on the bottom of the sound, for example, they would not be able to track me by scent and Alice would have no visual markers to tell her where I was.

I took off running.

"Damn it, Edward!" Alice yelled after me. "If you ruin this, I will _never_ forgive you!"

My breath hitched in a little laugh. As though Alice's eternal grudge could even come close to comparing to the pain I would be dealing with if I lost Isobel forever.

And besides - Alice had said it was Isobel or death, right? If I lost her and then went insane and killed myself, I would care even less about Alice's enmity.

God, was this even the right thing to do? _Was_ there a right thing to do anymore?

I didn't know.

I ran without a very clear idea of where I was going - just with the vague notion that one part of the forest would look very like any other, making me that much harder to track via Alice's visions. Besides - if I didn't know where I was going, she wouldn't either. After perhaps ten minutes, though, I came upon a small clearing through which a stream meandered, and found myself pausing. Though all was dripping and wet, the clearing seemed an emerald-colored haven. Young evergreens and bracken lined its edges, making it feel closed-in and private. Within the clearing itself, more bracken vied for space with grasses and other low plants that, in a warmer season, might have produced flowers or berries to brighten the little meadow. The bank of the stream was dominated by other types of fern - most notably maidenhair and swordfern - with moss covering every exposed rock face.

I took a deep breath, tasting the air and trying to inhale the peace of this place deeply enough to make it a part of my innermost self. Wandering over to a reasonably large rock conveniently located next to the stream, I sat down, finding the sight and sound of the water somehow soothing.

It was hard to say how long I sat there, or what I thought about. In spite of my perfect memory, my thoughts were too fragmentary to make sense. I returned, again and again, to two things - my increasing need for Isobel and her likely disgust when she saw beyond the image I had been projecting for her - but found myself unable to reconcile them. Isobel was _my_ mate. I was _her_ boyfriend. She was perfectly, utterly pure - generous, thoughtful, intelligent and principled. I was a murderer and a stalker. A soul caught in the midst perdition might just as productively yearn after an angel.

I was so caught up in my own bleak and miserable thoughts, that I failed to notice when someone else's thoughts entered my range. Or maybe, on some level, I _did_ notice, but didn't care because the intruder wasn't Alice and wasn't likely to approach me in order to take her part.

The one trespassing on my peace was Rosalie.

I heard her with my physical ears several moments before she stepped out of the forest and into my clearing. When she emerged, she glanced around with a little frown of distaste. "I never understand you," she told me conversationally. "You seem to positively delight in desolate places. Someday I swear we're going to catch you building a gloomy Gothic castle out in the middle of nowhere."

"I actually _found_ this place rather peaceful," I replied, not in the mood to humor her and certainly uninterested in small talk.

"Alright, then," she sighed, "if you're going to be like that - I want to talk." She clarified: "I'm _ready_ to talk."

"Now," I said flatly, suddenly suspecting that Alice somehow _had_ put her up to it, even if it wasn't showing up in her thoughts.

"Actually this morning," she replied with cool dignity, "but you were MIA."

I didn't reply, so she stepped forward carefully, as though trying not to allow the ground to sully the bottoms of her expensive shoes. Half a dozen feet away, she stopped and crossed her arms. I watched her, waiting. "You're going to turn her," she said without preamble.

"Isobel?" I asked, surprised.

"No," Rosalie said, rolling her eyes, "your _other_ human mate."

I snorted. "No, I'm not."

"Yes," Rose argued, "you are. Look," she continued before I could protest, "we both know how much I - I _hate_ this."

 _This_ , of course, referred to our mutual vampirism. Her honest contempt for our condition couldn't be denied, and so I nodded. When she had said that she _never_ understood me, that had been inaccurate. In this, as in nothing else, Rosalie and I were united.

She uncrossed her arms and went very still - the vampiric equivalent of shifting uncomfortably. "I asked Carlisle to turn Emmett anyway."

"He was going to die," I pointed out.

"That argument doesn't even make sense," she growled, suddenly irritated. Her ire wasn't directed at me, though. Instead it was Carlisle who bore the brunt of it - Rose never had seen eye-to-eye with him on any sort of moral philosophy. She had given up arguing with him decades ago, however - Carlisle was simply better at reasoning out and articulating his beliefs than she was. " _All_ humans are going to die," she continued sourly. "All of them are in the process of dying now."

I flinched, but she took no notice.

"It shouldn't make a difference, and it didn't. I asked for Emmett to be turned because I _wanted_ him." She hesitated before going on: "I don't think you understand yet, Edward. _That_ is what finding your mate means: it means choosing someone, no matter what - against your desires, against your principles, even against your will."

Though she paused as if waiting for me to respond, I could only stare at her.

"To be honest," she sighed, "I didn't expect you to last this long. I - didn't expect you pull yourself away from her house, or to avoid following her everywhere so thoroughly. You've done well, but we can all see it wearing at you. You won't last forever. You _will_ turn her - and I can't forgive you for it, because I can't forgive myself."

I didn't know what I was supposed to say to that, so we sat in silence for a long moment. I found myself reviewing my past with Isobel in light of Rosalie's words, starting with that very first day when I had almost killed her. Then I got up to the day of accident with Tyler, and I found myself frowning.

"You wanted to _kill_ her," I reminded Rose.

"Yes," she agreed, the guilty expression on her face almost entirely unfamiliar to me. Rosalie rarely admitted guilt, or that she was wrong about anything - being wrong just made her fight harder. "Please believe that I didn't realize what she was to you," she went on. "All I knew was that you weren't acting at all like yourself, and that Jasper was frightened. His fears fed mine, and - well, I should have realized what kind of pull would have the power to change you so entirely. But I didn't - not until later - and that's the simple truth."

I frowned. "I'm not - "

"Please," she cut me off, holding up one hand. "I know how I would feel if someone threatened Emmett. I'm sorry, but I understand if you can't forgive me."

"It would be easier," I admitted, "if you hadn't been so belligerent lately. I think I've already forgiven Jasper."

"Yeah, well," she sighed, "we can hold mutual grudges. Seems fitting." She cast her eyes upward, toward the steadily dripping sky. "You know - he doesn't bring it up much because he would rather keep getting laid than argue, but Emmett doesn't agree with me. He's glad I turned him. What if your girl is the same? Alice seems to think she will be."

I found myself gripping my hair with one hand and slowly made myself release it. "I don't know," I replied. "The only thing - I suppose all I can do is try to convince her differently."

Rosalie laughed derisively. "Well, in that case you're doomed - but send her to me if you need to. Maybe I can give her a different perspective on the whole thing."

I nodded. "Thanks, Rose."

"Sure," she replied with a shrug, glancing around the clearing once more. "I guess I'll leave you to it, then."

I nodded again, and in the next moment she was gone, leaving me alone with an entirely new set of concerns. It was another good reason not to ask for Alice's help, anyway - if Isobel was likely to mistakenly choose _this_ , she really would be better off with someone other than me. I should _encourage_ her to forget me.

Of course, I wouldn't - but I _should_.

The afternoon passed slowly as I wrestled with both my conscience and the desires that threatened to overwhelm it and me.

A text interrupted as the light began to grow a little dim. I thought about ignoring it, but I had to return home sometime so I might as well see who it was from and what they had to say. I pulled out my phone to look, noting that it was from a number I didn't know. "It's Isobel," the text read - I had neglected to give her my number, so she must have gotten it from Alice.

Then I read the rest: "I think Billy Black knows what you are."


	34. Chapter 33

XXXIII.

"She's looking good," Jake said, patting Simone's fender almost as affectionately as I habitually did. He had requested the chance to take a look at her since she was Billy's old truck, which meant he'd had a hand in maintaining since he was old enough to lift a - whatever tools were most commonly used on cars. I really needed to get some lessons from Charlie.

"'She'?" I repeated, and then realized I was quoting Edward's question from more than a week before, when I, too, had started treating Simone less as an object and more as a person. In this case, though, I suspected that Charlie might have been telling stories about me.

Probably not what had happened, though, based on Jake's response. "Sure," he said, "all cars are 'she.'" He leaned toward me conspiratorially. "It's because they're temperamental. Like women."

I rolled my eyes as he laughed. "I think you've been choosing to hang around the wrong women," I told him. "Anyway, you don't know Simone very well if you think she's temperamental." I gestured at her.

"You _named_ her?"

He sounded so surprised. "Why not?" I asked, grinning at him.

"No reason, I guess," he replied.

"You're just jealous that you didn't think of it first," I told him, eliciting another smile.

"That's not it. The guys would laugh me out of the shop if I started naming the cars." He eyed Simone appreciatively. "It's a good name, though. It fits."

"Edward's mom suggested it," I explained.

"Huh," he said.

"Hey, can I ask you something about Billy?" I had been wondering about a change in Billy's attitude ever since Edward left, but hadn't found a chance to slip it naturally into conversation. Mentioning Esme might count as an opening. I was going to use it as one, anyway.

"You mean why he's been silently freaking out ever since you introduced your boyfriend?" Jake asked with a smile that fell somewhere between pained and amused.

I nodded.

He glanced up at the sky. "I don't think it will start raining again right away. You want to take a walk? We could go looking for that old treehouse in the woods. Betcha I'm tall enough to get up to it _now_."

I had completely forgotten about that episode - when Rachel and Rebecca had taunted Jacob into trying to climb up to the decrepit treehouse that someone had built long ago in the little wooded area at the end of the street. He'd been pestering us for a couple of hours, and so they were fairly relentless in mocking him when it turned out he was too short to get up into the tree. It had ended with him in frustrated tears.

"That thing _must_ have rotted away by now," I told him, "and if by some miracle it hasn't, there's no way it would support your weight. We can go looking for it if you want to, though. You might be able to get up into the _tree_ , at least."

"Might as well," he said with a shrug. I let him lead the way towards the woods, since I didn't even remember where the path was anymore. "Sorry about my dad," he said as we walked.

"I just don't _get_ it," I told him, stepping carefully from the damp pavement onto the still-saturated and very muddy ground. "Charlie loves Edward. What's Billy got against him?" Two or three weeks ago, I might have believed that Edward was somehow a secret troublemaker who kept it confined to the reservation in an attempt to stay out of Charlie's reach. I would have been skeptical, but I might have been convinced. Now, though? No way.

Jacob rolled his eyes. "It's not your boyfriend, it's just some old tribal stuff."

He found the path and held aside a branch for me as I felt my brow furrow. "What does old Quileute tribal stuff have to do with Edward?"

"It's not Edward," Jake repeated, following behind me. The path wasn't wide enough for two to walk abreast. "It's his last name. See, back in the time of my great-great-grandfather, Ephraim Black, there was another family of Cullens living in Forks. We called them the Cold Ones - what your people would call," he paused for dramatic effect, " _vampires_."

The word seemed to lodge somewhere in my chest, and suddenly I couldn't breathe.

Oh _shit_.

The Cullens had lived in Forks before? The Quileutes knew about them? How? And why? Did they not hide what they were back then? No - that couldn't be right. Jacob's great-great-grandfather would have lived...I wasn't sure, but definitely sometime after the turn of the 20th century, right? No one believed in vampires in the late 19th _or_ early 20th centuries.

Except, apparently, the Quileutes.

I blinked and realized Jacob was waiting for some kind of response, so I quickly added up everything he had been saying, glad he couldn't actually see my stunned expression. My conclusion was that he didn't believe any of it and expected me to laugh.

So I laughed.

It wasn't the best laugh maybe, but it was _a_ laugh.

"I know, I know," Jake groaned, thankfully taking my response at face value. Or back value? Whatever, he didn't question it. "Because 'Cullen' is _definitely_ an uncommon last name, right? For two years - _two years_ \- Charlie and my dad have been arguing about Dr. Cullen. That's probably why Charlie made such a point of inviting your boyfriend to stay."

"That does make sense," I agreed. It also made Charlie's obvious determination to like Edward a little more understandable - like me, Charlie tended to dig in his heels when someone tried to push him.

"I gotta say, though," Jake went on, sounding almost impressed, "dating the police chief's daughter? Your guy must have balls of _steel_."

If my surmise about vampire tissues compared to human tissues was correct, the effect might be the same, even if Jake had the actual substance wrong. Obviously I couldn't _say_ that, though. Instead I said: "I find your interest in my boyfriend's balls vaguely disturbing."

He stopped walking and erupted into laughter, so I turned around to look at him, unable to keep a little smirk off my face.

"Tell me more about your old Quileute legend, though," I said when his laughter had subsided.

"Huh?" he said, apparently having already mentally dismissed the subject. "Oh, well…there's not too much to tell. The Cullens from the legend did their best not to hunt humans, so my people made a treaty with them. They agreed to stay off our lands in return for us keeping quiet."

"That's it?" I asked, surprised by the lack of detail. First names, for instance.

"Nah, there was also some shit about how old Ephraim found out what they were in the first place. Quileute legend has always held that, more than any other animal, we're most closely related to the wolf. Supposedly some giant black wolf showed up and told Ephraim all about the Cullens, and gave the Quileute men a part of his power in return for some kind of blood pact. Now all of us boys between about fourteen and twenty have to go out every year and do this whole ritual fasting thing where we wait to see if a wolf comes by to tell us anything else." He rolled his eyes. "There aren't even wolves _left_ on this side of the sound, so it's all pretty pointless."

Pretty pointless from my perspective, too - I wanted to hear more about the Cullens. "Doesn't the legend tell you the names of the vampires or anything?"

"No," Jake sighed, "but who cares? Like names can't be changed. There is one thing, though," he gave me a decidedly wolfish grin and leaned in close. "The leader of the Cold Ones? He was _also_ a doctor. Spoooky."

He laughed, clearly thinking nothing of the "coincidence," so I laughed along with him.

"So are we looking for this treehouse, or what?" he demanded after a moment.

"Right," I agreed, turning to continue down the path.

It took a little searching, but eventually we found the remains of the old platform, which was just about all that was left. It never had been _much_ of a treehouse, but at some point the walls and roof disintegrated or otherwise mostly disappeared, leaving a few boards scattered around below the tree. The platform was entirely covered in moss and looked like it, too, was about ready to crumble at the slightest touch.

"That's not going to hold your weight," I told Jake.

He snorted. "That wouldn't even hold _your_ weight, and you're little."

"Hey! I'm both average height for a girl of my age and a perfectly healthy weight for my height," I informed him, annoyed by the slight.

"Yep," he agreed, "like I said - little. Climbing this tree wouldn't be a problem, anyway, even if the treehouse _is_ shot."

"Sure," I replied, "if you want to get wet, muddy and mossy."

"Huh," he said thoughtfully, "I guess your dad probably wouldn't let me sit and watch the game if I got dirty…"

"My _dad_ nothing," I scoffed. "Who do you think does sixty percent of the cleaning? _I_ won't let you sit _anywhere_ in the house if you get dirty."

"Yeah, yeah." he sighed, rolling his eyes. "We should come back sometime, though. We could climb the tree together - just like old times."

"I've never climbed trees," I reminded him. "I would have fallen out and killed myself, and probably still would. You're thinking of your sisters."

"Come on, Bells," he wheedled. "I wouldn't let you get hurt."

I raised an eyebrow at him, not certain how I felt about him appropriating my father's nickname for me - especially since it was what he had done when he wanted to tease me when we were kids. "No thanks. When you spend as much time as I have with my mom, you learn it's wiser to keep your feet firmly planted on the ground. I'll leave the tree-climbing to you."

"You're no fun," he pouted.

"None at all," I agreed breezily. "And Renee looks much cuter pouting than you do, so don't think you're going to get anything over on me." Actually, Renee looked pretty hilarious pouting, because she was too sunny and cheerful generally to pull it off with any semblance of sincerity. Laughter was its own kind of persuasion, though.

The thought of my mom reminded me, somewhat guiltily, that I should call her. She didn't even know about my date with Edward yet, and now he was suddenly my _boyfriend_.

Well, there would probably be plenty of time while the guys watched the game - after I asked Edward a few pointed questions about the Quileutes and why, exactly, they knew about vampires.

A drop of water fell on my nose, followed by the sound of several more hitting the leaf-strewn ground. "Uh oh, it's starting to rain again. Let's head back to the house," I told Jake, turning to go without even waiting for his agreement.

" _Sheesh_ , what - do you melt in the rain?" he called after me before hurrying to catch up.

"So far no," I joked, "but I don't trust that it's a quality that won't develop suddenly and spontaneously."

"You are _so_ not cut out for Forks," he mocked me.

"I figured that out years ago. Why do you think I didn't move back before?" I returned. "I'm here for Charlie, not the weather." Well, Edward factored in now, too, and of course Angela and Alice were important - but the weather still sucked.

When we got back, Charlie and Billy were deep in some argument about the relative chances of the football teams involved in the game they were going to watch, which was about to start. Thankfully, they were too involved for Billy to cast more than a single worried look my way.

The game had some official title that I couldn't remember - not the Super Bowl, of course, something else - but it didn't matter since I didn't care enough to watch. I ran upstairs to change into a different sweatshirt - mine having fared poorly in the rain - and then went back downstairs to put out some basic snacks that I had acquired for this little get together. It was just chips, some snap peas and carrots, and a dish of almonds, but we'd eaten a big lunch a little less than two hours before, so I didn't expect that they would need much. My hostessing duties complete, I left all three guys to their game and went back to my room to call Edward.

It was only once I was sitting on my bed that I realized I didn't actually have his number.

Well, it was probably just an oversight on both our parts. I knew it was on mine. We saw each other at school every day, so I hadn't needed it before now. I could get it from Alice.

I texted her: "I forgot to get Edward's number. Can you give it to me?"

She replied with the number, followed by: "I don't know if he'll answer right now, but you can try him. If he does answer, will you smack him for me, please?"

"Uh, sure," I responded, uncertain how I was, first, supposed to do that over the phone, and, second, make it feel like anything besides a gentle love pat. Vampires were obviously much stronger than humans, and I had good reason to suspect that they were less susceptible to things like smacks, too.

I could practically hear Alice's chirpy little voice in her response: "Thank you!"

Next I sent a text to Edward, reasoning that if he happened to be busy, a text could be responded to at any time more easily than a phone call. "It's Isobel," I said. "I think Billy Black knows what you are." Then, after a moment of hesitation, I sent another: "You can call me if you want. Alice implied you might be busy. Also, I'm supposed to smack you for some reason, so if you could take care of that for me, it would save me some trouble."

With my texts sent, I spent a moment thinking and chewing on my lip. How long should I wait for a response? Should I just call my mom and get back to this later?

Luckily my phone buzzed before I could decide.

Edward hadn't called, just texted back. "Does Billy Black happen to be Quileute?" he asked. It took me a second to realize he hadn't responded to jab about smacking himself. I wished he had called - I would have been able to judge his mood better if I'd been able to hear his voice. The straightforwardness of and lack of humor in his question made me uneasy.

"Yes," I replied, wondering why he hadn't picked up on any of this while he was here. Maybe he had been too focused on Jacob? Was that a thing that could happen? "Jacob told me about their legends regarding your family. He doesn't believe any of it or that you're the same Cullens, though," I hastened to add.

"Don't worry about it," Edward sent. "By treaty, Billy can't tell you about us, which means he shouldn't bother you. Jacob shouldn't have said anything, either, but his ignorance can be excused."

"How do they know, though?" I typed furiously. "Why did you tell them?"

This time my wait for his reply was longer. "We didn't," he sent at last. "Sometimes people have unusual abilities, like mine. Or yours. Someone in their tribe must have had one that revealed what we are."

"You don't know?" I asked, a little incredulous. Had I been them, I would have demanded, while making the treaty, to know how I had been found out.

"Everything they told us was cloaked in mysticism," Edward told me. "That was likely how they understood it."

Right - I supposed that was the bit about the big black wolf.

"I see," I replied.

"Anything else that worries you?" he asked.

I wondered if I was bothering him.

"No," I sent quickly. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"See you tomorrow," he agreed.

I sat still on my bed for a moment, my phone clasped between my hands, reflecting on our exchange. There really wasn't much to make me think that Edward was upset about something - just the fact that he had ignored my teasing. The tone associated with everything else could be interpreted any number of ways. That was part of the problem with texting.

Still, though, he usually responded pretty positively to being teased. Or at least being teased by me. His combativeness was one of the things I liked about him.

But - if he had wanted to talk about it - assuming there was an "it" - he would have brought it up, right? There was a good chance it didn't even have anything to do with me. I had evidence that he and Alice were arguing about something, and I had figured out by now how broody he could get when he was at odds with someone.

By the same token, though, he might be broody about me without it ever occurring to him that maybe he should discuss it _with_ me.

"Ughhhh," I groaned, throwing myself back on the bed. Wasn't this the role women were supposed to play in relationships? Getting upset about things and then refusing to talk about them without substantial prodding? I wasn't like that at all and didn't expect other women to be, either - but Edward was from a time when gender roles were much more rigid. Why did he have to be a stereotypical man when it was inconvenient, and then choose to step outside of that role when it would have been much more convenient if he'd stuck to it?

I had been so _incredibly_ naive to _ever_ think dating someone could just be simple and fun.

Well, whatever. There were lots of people in Edward's family, so based on raw probability, whatever what bothering him - if anything - was more likely to be about someone else than about me. I had been his girlfriend for all of about three hours now, so maybe I was getting ahead of myself - Edward might not be ready to talk to me about all the little frictions that no doubt occurred between him and his "brothers" and "sisters."

I put it resolutely aside and called my mom.

"Isobel!" she greeted me. "You haven't answered my last email!"

Oh, crap. I had completely forgotten about it in the excitement of shopping Saturday, and then - everything after that.

"I've been busy with my friends," I told her. "And, uh, my boyfriend?"

For the second time in the same day, I had to hold the phone away from my ear to avoid being deafened.

After that, of course, my mom needed _every detail_ of the story. I told her everything that didn't involve vampirism - even about getting lost and then rescued. She wouldn't tell Charlie on me, and I could practically hear the stars in her eyes as she enthused over how romantic it was that Edward had driven up just in time to send the men following me running away. Of course, she liked the stories of how I had kissed him and how he had reacted to Jacob checking me out almost as well. My mother really was hopelessly sentimental.

Once I had finished with Edward, she wanted to hear about my shopping trip. I had the opposite problem with her that I did with Charlie: he zoned out after three minutes, while my concise, roughly six minute summary wasn't nearly enough for Renee. She spent a while asking me about details I didn't really remember because they hadn't struck me as important at the time.

After she had gotten everything she wanted (or possibly was capable of getting) out of me about shopping, she told me about what she had been doing. That mostly consisted of keeping up with work and meeting and getting to know Phil's teammates and their wives, as well as, of course, spending time with Phil. It sounded to me like Phil might be showing her off a little - Renee looked at least a decade younger than she was, had always been pretty, and had a charisma that made people want to be around her. In that sense, it was no wonder that Charlie had never completely gotten over her. I was given to understand - mostly from hints dropped by Jessica - that no one in Forks old enough to remember quite knew how he had managed to capture her attention in the first place.

I could have offered them some insight into that, had anyone ever been rude enough to say it out loud in my presence: Renee was remarkably unpretentious. She was much too in-the-clouds to care about little things like disparities in levels of attractiveness.

I teased her a little about Phil showing her off, but couldn't convince her that it might actually be happening. It wasn't the sort of thing she understood - or the sort of thing she would do, which had admittedly made it a little easier to be her daughter. I never had been much good at performing on command. Luckily for Phil, it wasn't a trait I had inherited from my mother. She never froze up during a performance, because she never recognized anything _as_ a performance. It was impossible for her to be anyone other than herself.

By the time we got off the phone, I knew the football game had to be winding down. I went downstairs to check on things.

My arrival in the living room coincided with some kind of tense moment, so I went to the dining room to check on the snacks. The levels were considerably lower than I had expected - but I understood when Jake came in as I was refilling the chips and filled his bowl with a heaping portion. In my calculations, I had clearly failed to account for the over-sized appetite of a teenage boy. No wonder, really - I didn't have any brothers or close male cousins or anything. Even my boyfriend had an entirely abnormal diet, no matter whether your perspective was human or vampire.

"Thanks," Jake told me, flashing me a grin before going back out to the living room.

There was a groan a moment later as I was filling the almonds, and I heard Charlie say, "That's it. There's no way they're coming back now."

I went to the entry and looked at the TV. Thirty seconds remained on the clock, which, I knew from experience, could take a lot more than thirty seconds to finish counting down. Like now - players from both teams were lining up on the field and the clock wasn't running. It had always seemed like a scam to me that a "one hour game" could last something like three hours in real time. Younger me had been absolutely appalled to discover the disparity, in fact, back when I relied on adults to do things like read to me and make my meals.

Actually, that might have contributed to my determined resolution to learn to read the summer I spent with Charlie just before I turned four. I didn't remember it very well, of course, but Charlie still trotted out the story of me spending entire baseball games practicing phonics out loud at the top of my lungs as a means of demonstrating my disenchantment with his preferred pastime.

Thankfully, I was no longer constrained by an inability to read or cook, so I had no need to subject myself to the watching of pointless competitions that accomplished nothing besides making lots of money for their participants and even more money for the employers of said participants. Since the game wasn't quite finished and I expected that Charlie, Billy and Jake would watch some of the post-game coverage, I went back up to my room.

My book selection was, of course, pathetic, but most of what I had brought with me was the kind of thing I read for comfort. I spent a moment debating between Diana Wynne Jones' light-hearted _Howl's Moving Castle_ and Ursula LeGuin's more serious _Lavinia_. Eventually I decided that I had enough "serious" on my hands with Edward - and besides, he and Howl seemed to be similarly prone to drama. Maybe I could learn a thing or two from Sophie Hatter, the book's protagonist and, eventually, Howl's primary drama wrangler.

I got lost - as was usual for me - in the book fairly quickly, and only came back to reality when Charlie came up to tell me that Jake and Billy were taking off. I went down to say goodbye, and then somewhat reluctantly turned my attention to the homework I had spent the weekend neglecting. It wasn't a lot, so there was no real reason not to finish it up.

It wasn't long before I had spread my stuff across the dining room table and was in the process of seriously considering piracy as an option for getting a digital copy of my history textbook. All textbooks should really be available as searchable databases. I hated flipping through a book to look for obscure dates and names, and my teacher had been dumb enough to lift most of the wording for his questions directly from the relevant passages of the textbook, which would have made search queries ridiculously easy. Charlie would be pissed if he found out I had illegally downloaded something, though, and for the moment that possibility still outweighed my irritation.

The scales were beginning to tip the other direction as I tried to locate some pointless little detail on the issues that eventually divided William Howard Taft from Theodore Roosevelt, when Charlie came in and placed himself meaningfully in the entryway to the living room. Though his stance was casual as he leaned against the wall, Charlie wasn't in the habit of hovering. If he was here, he wanted to talk.

I gave up my search gratefully and looked up at him. "So…" he said, shifting a little uncomfortably, "Edward is your boyfriend now?"

Oh yeah. So many things had happened this weekend - and _today_ \- that Edward's impromptu and fairly public ramping up of our relationship had gotten lost.

I grinned at Charlie. "He is as of about noon today. He caught Jake checking me out and got a little upset."

Charlie stared at me for a moment - and then began laughing. He so rarely let out more than an amused chuckle that I was surprised. "Well, sounds like the boy has his head on straight," he said after a moment, still grinning.

"You think so?" I asked. I had honestly been a little uncertain about how Charlie would respond to what might be interpreted as somewhat excessive possessiveness on Edward's part. Besides, Billy and Jake were old friends. Even if Charlie liked Edward, he might just as easily have preferred Jacob.

"Sure," Charlie said. "Jake's a good-looking kid, he already has a connection to you, and he's not exactly subtle. Edward _should_ feel a little threatened by his interest if he values you the way you deserve."

"I think you might be biased towards me," I told him affectionately, and then continued quickly before he could argue or get embarrassed: "I thought you might prefer Jake to Edward, though."

Charlie's eyebrows shot up. "Jake? Nah, he's a good kid, but not right for you."

I raised one eyebrow at him, uncertain whether I should be amused or annoyed.

"Bells," Charlie began with a sigh, "anyone with eyes can see you're going places. Jake, though? He's not. Part of that is Billy - Rachel and Rebecca wanted _out_ and had the brains and drive to make it. Now that Billy's disabled, that leaves Jacob to take care of him. That's the first part, and that's not Jake's choice. The other part, though, is that he has roots here and he feels them in a way his sisters didn't." Charlie paused and spent a moment staring out the window behind me. "You, though, you're - bigger than Forks or La Push. Maybe someday you'll come back and settle here - I'd like that - but you'll never get the chance to stretch your wings if you don't leave first. That much is obvious."

I found myself staring at my dad. It was a pretty long speech for him, so I knew he must really mean it. "I'm bigger than Forks? You think so?"

He nodded.

"If it's so obvious, though, why don't I see it?"

One side of his mouth pulled up in a smile. "Probably because you're still only seventeen, Bells. You don't know _everything_ yet."

I laughed. "I like that 'yet.' Nice hedging, Dad."

He chuckled in response. "Well - so that's why I like Edward for you. There's a lot to like about him anyway, but no matter whether you break up tomorrow or never, I know he's almost as smart as you are and won't try to hold you back or box you in."

That was a point I hadn't considered - but, then, I didn't think I would put up with anyone who _would_ try to hold me back or box me in. I might not know what I wanted, exactly, but I didn't like having anything dictated to me. That much I _did_ know.

"Well," Charlie sighed, apparently feeling that he had said everything that needed to be said, "I'll let you get back to your homework."

"Hey, Dad," I began, not quite certain how to express my gratitude for his confidence and affection, but knowing that, for once, I really wanted to express it - even if it made him a little uncomfortable. "Thank for - you know - caring enough to ask about this stuff. I appreciate it."

He ducked his head a little, and I thought I discerned a blush. "Sure, Bells," he told me gruffly. "I'm, uh, going to turn on a game. Let me know if, uh, it gets too loud for you."

"Okay," I agreed, watching him go with a smile.

One thing couldn't be denied: my dad was pretty great.

* * *

Note: Just to head off anyone who doubts it, kids can learn to read at three. My mom did. It's a sign that someone is high aptitude, which Isobel is and my mother is as well. (Not that she - my mother - believes it. She credits her older sister with teaching her to read - never mind that my efforts to teach my younger sister to read at that age fell flat. This is also the woman who graduated with her master's degree at 55, after being out of school for more than a quarter of a century, with a 4.0, and then tried to give all the credit to me as her editor and to the leniency of her professors. Whatever, Mom. Whatever.)

I'll be back in a week with the next chapter.


	35. Chapter 34

Note: Hopefully the next chapter will be up Wednesday, but I'm leaving to go camping that afternoon, and I don't expect to have a lot of internet availability in my tent in the woods (the woods on the Olympic Peninsula, incidentally - I've been wanting to visit places I used to go as a kid, back when my grandmother lived there, for the last several months). I'll try to post Monday at the latest, depending on when I get home on Sunday.

* * *

XXXIV.

"The technical term for that is _whipped_ , bro," Emmett told me helpfully as I handed him another spark plug.

I wasn't quite certain what he had done to get engine cleaning duty from Rosalie, but it illustrated perfectly the reason why I was talking to him about this at all. I needed advice from someone who had experience dealing with an exceptionally strong-willed mate. "Your _technical term_ applies to you, too, _bro_ ," I informed him.

It was true: of the three couples in our family, Emmett and Rosalie had by far the most contentious relationship. Carlisle and Esme never, as far as I could see, actually fought. Sometimes they sat down together and talked very seriously about an issue, but there was never any anger, no lingering bitterness, not even a hint of a raised voice. They listened carefully to each other and reached decisions together. Alice and Jasper rarely disagreed about anything - their mutual talents typically helped pave the way to understanding long before a conflict had the chance to emerge. On the rare occasions they _did_ argue, it was an epic blowout, but I had known them for seventy-plus years - not counting the decade or so I had spent as an angel of death - and could count on one hand the number of real disagreements I had witnessed between them. Anyway, neither had an upper hand over the other - that was what made their fights so intense.

Emmett and Rosalie, though - they were constantly getting into little squabbles and resolving them just as quickly. And Rosalie won upwards of ninety percent of the time. I had gone back and calculated it out, just to be certain my impressions matched reality.

It was important because I had come to a critical conclusion this evening: the things I tried to do to avoid hurting Isobel _in the future_ were precisely the things that hurt her the most _right now_. Away from her, I could balance those desires and reach the proper conclusions: I should protect her future, even if it meant some temporary pain in the present. As soon as she smiled or frowned at me, though, I lost all sense of proportion in the overwhelming need to see her happy _immediately_.

It was a problem.

Emmett stopped scrubbing and shot me a glare. "Fuck you, asshole. I'm not whipped."

I gave the spark plug in his hand a significant look and then rose. "I'll go tell Rosalie you said - "

He grabbed me before I could finish the thought. "Sit the fuck down. You are _not_ preventing me from getting laid just to prove some goddamned point."

I did as he ordered and raised an eyebrow at him, wondering if he was going to admit that he had just made my point for me.

Emmett sighed and tossed the steel wool he was holding into the bucket of soapy water at his feet with a little more force than necessary. "Why are you even telling me this if you really think that? What fucking advice could I possibly give you?"

I paused, swiftly re-evaluating my plans. It was possible that - he had me there. Why _would_ I want the advice of someone who never managed to hold his own in an argument? I might not know what was best for Isobel in _general_ , but in this I did - I knew what I was, what being a vampire entailed, while she had no direct experience. "You've worked it out _somehow_ ," I told Emmett a little desperately. "Either by learning to choose your battles or - or something - "

"It's not like that!" he insisted in a growl. "Look," he sighed, "I don't know how you haven't fucking realized this, since you're always in everyone's heads," he reached out and flicked my forehead meaningfully, which I didn't stop him from doing since it didn't actually hurt, "but Rosie _likes_ thinking she's forced me to do something I don't want to do."

I blinked, trying to reassess my impressions of their arguments, but he went on before I could reach any conclusions.

"How is it you think I give a shit about cleaning her engines, or mopping her floors, or organizing her bins?" That was true, I supposed - he never did seem to mind any of those things. "I would _offer_ , but that's not what she wants. She wants to know I love her beyond all reason, and that I would do anything for her - even things I don't want to do. Which I do and I would - but there's not a lot of shit I just flat out don't want to do. This way she gets to feel like she's in control and I just do all the shit I'd be offering to do anyway. Call it 'engineering a win-win.'"

"I don't know your motives if you aren't thinking about them," I pointed out, annoyed by the implication that I had done something wrong by not interpreting their thoughts properly. "And I try not to listen while you're fighting - I'm aware of just how quickly _anger_ can become _passion_ for the two of you."

Emmett shot me a grin, pleased to have his amorous exploits noticed and mentioned. Pleased enough, in fact, that after a moment he lapsed into thoughtfulness, really considering my problem rather than just slapping a derogatory label on it. "So the real problem here, right, is that the Swan girl is human," he said slowly. "Hey," he added suddenly, interrupting his own thought, "baby ducks are called _ducklings_. Are baby swans called _swanlings_?"

"They're called _cygnets_ ," I sighed. "Can you get back to your point, please?"

His face screwed up in puzzlement. " _Signet_? Like a ring?"

I sighed again and spelled out the word for him, realizing that we weren't going to get anywhere until his curiosity was satisfied. Emmett sometimes made me wonder if it was possible for a vampire, even with perfect recall, to have some of the problems associated with attention deficit disorders.

"Kind of a cool word," he muttered. " _Cygnet_. Cygnet."

"Emmett!" I snapped.

"Right," he said, shaking his head. "The problem," he began, and then paused. "The problem is that the Swan girl is human, so she's not as attached to you as you are to her. I mean, she can't be, right?"

"No, she's not," I replied, the thought depressing me.

"So make her one of us," Emmett finished with a shrug. "Problem solved. _All_ problems solved."

He met my glare with a grin.

"Okay, okay," he laughed, bending over his neglected bucket and fishing his steel wool out from the soapy water. "Well, I guess if you're not going to do the _obvious_ and _smart_ thing, then you have to make a choice. Right? You spend time with her, you get closer. You don't...and you don't."

I buried my hands in my hair. He _was_ right - exactly right - but it hurt.

"You can't have it both ways, dumbass," he told me helpfully as he started on the sparkplug again. "You can't both pursue her and _not_ pursue her. You aren't one of those - superposition things."

I rolled my eyes at his attempted metaphor. He really had no idea what a superposition was. "A superposition isn't an _object_ ," I told him. "It's when an atom or a subatomic particle - or a small object - is in two states at the same - you know what? Never mind. Your point is still - _somehow_ \- valid."

"I know," he agreed easily.

I groaned. "I guess - I have to...try to stay away from her. At least stop seeking her out when we don't already have - "

"Hold on," Emmett interrupted. " _That's_ what you got from this conversation?"

"Yes…?" I replied uncertainly.

"No!" Emmett returned emphatically. "The right answer is that you pursue her, you get closer to her, she cares more about you, the gap between her feelings and your feelings starts to close. Humans aren't like us. Ninety percent of love-at-first-sight for them is total bullshit. That's why you have to work to close the gap. That's also why, on the list of things you should do, turning her is at the top."

I growled, but he ignored me and spoke over it.

"The _s_ _econd_ thing on the list is spending every moment you can with her, not only because she's your fucking mate and that's what you _do_ , but also because it makes her care more about you. Third, you could _not_ man up, and instead keep going back and forth on what you should do like a pathetic little bitch. And _fourth_ , the thing you shouldn't do at all, is _avoid_ her. The fuck is wrong with you, bro?"

"There's nothing _wrong_ with me," I insisted, bristling. "Just because we disagree doesn't mean I'm - "

"Whatever," Emmett cut me off. "If you're going to be stupid about this, then go away. Someday, when I meet my new sister, I don't want her blaming _me_ for whatever fucked up course of action _you_ decide on."

It occurred to me as I stalked away, leaving Emmett whistling unconcernedly behind me, that perhaps I should have brought this _particular_ problem to Rosalie. I wasn't in the habit of discussing anything outside of cars with Rose - but when it came to Isobel, she really was the only one who could see things from my perspective.

Since I started the morning in conflict with half of my siblings, I decided the expedient solution was to take one of my own cars to school. A part of me thought I should take Emmett's advice after all and offer Isobel a ride to school, but - luckily? - she didn't typically arrive until after second period, so that was impractical.

Instead I took my Aston Martin and left early, finding the familiar luxury of my favorite car at least a little bit comforting. I parked as far back in the parking lot as possible, reasoning that my car was less likely to get scratched or dented if it was parked away from the closer spots that others usually preferred. Then - I just sat for a while, trying to make sense of what I was doing.

Vampires didn't fare well, typically, without their mates. After Rosalie first turned Emmett, she had a major existential crisis. Esme, concerned for her mental health, had attempted to quantify a vampire's need for his or her mate to show Rose that her choice had been the right one. She had made an effort to find vampires who had lost their mates - or, more commonly as it turned out, had personally known others who had lost their mates - and had come up with some rough statistics. Somewhere around three quarters of the survivors self-immolated within a few years. Another fifteen or twenty percent had psychotic breaks and had to be put down, either by the Volturi or by their own covens. The ones who survived usually had something exceptional to live for - a close-knit coven, for instance, that functioned more as a family than a group of allies, as ours did.

But, according to Alice, that would not be enough for me.

Was I ready to face the end of my life?

I had always believed that this - this thing that I was - was wrong, but I had never tried to act on that belief. I valued my family members too highly and didn't want to hurt them. And - the truth was that I didn't _want_ to die, even if I wished with every bit of whatever might remain of my soul that I could go back to being human.

Now, though, I found myself faced with a decision: what did I value more? My life and my ties to my family? Or Isobel?

I _wanted_ to selfishly value my own life and the lives of those I loved - I _wanted_ to keep Isobel, forever. But - mixed in with all that selfishness was real, selfless love for her. I truly believed she was better off as a human and probably better off without me. My selfishness kept me returning to her again and again, but if she chose to leave me - I thought I could probably use that rejection as a means of letting her go.

The next moment I was pulling out the notebook and pen I scrupulously took with me to class and almost never used - at least not for notes. Even though my ability to organize my thoughts was superior to that of any human, sometimes a thought looked different in my mind than it did on paper. I needed to work out how to approach my confession to Isobel.

I had to answer the question: was a I trying to drive her away? Or trying to keep her? If I simply laid out for her what I had done and my reasons for doing it, was that justice? Or in not doing my best to defend myself, was I giving up?

Did I want to give up?

I tried to work it out on paper. Even writing a little faster than a human ever would - no faster, though, in case anyone spotted me - I still ended up skipping my first three classes. From a distance, I watched Isobel arrive, but she didn't seem to notice my car - or, just as likely, didn't know that it _was_ mine and would have expected me to be in class anyway. By the time third period let out, I had covered pages and pages with strategies, crossed many out, and rearranged others to try to create a logical flow.

It was difficult, but in the end I reached a kind of compromise. My worst crimes - the murders - I would not try to justify in any way. They were unjustifiable. My reasons for following Isobel, though, centered around the fact that she was my mate, a relationship I had not sought, but that drove me with instincts I found it difficult to fight all the same. Whether she considered it a justification or not - would be up to her to decide.

I would start with the worst things I had done. She deserved to know the very worst of me before she decided whether or not to forgive the actions I had taken against her personally.

Since I had already skipped half a day of classes, I thought about skipping gym while I was at it. It was a chance to avoid Isobel, after all, which, after my conversation with Emmett, was supposedly my objective. We didn't have many chances to interact during class, though - and, besides that, it occurred to me for the first time to wonder what Alice might have said to her. I hadn't been paying attention to her thoughts this morning - really hadn't wanted to. That was all very well, but it might have left her an opening to say almost anything to Isobel. I couldn't possibly know without going to class, so I decided to go.

It was such a relief to have a perfectly valid reason to go.

I went to the locker room and changed quickly, knowing that if I wanted to catch Alice's thoughts about whatever she had told Isobel, I would probably have to surprise her into thinking about it. She knew I hadn't shown up to my earlier classes and wasn't watching the future to see if I would show up to this one now, so there was a chance I would manage to pull it off.

What I hadn't counted on was how seeing Isobel would affect me when we didn't have a parking lot between us and she was looking for me, too. I hadn't counted on her being - if not _equally_ \- at least _very_ pleased to see me. Alice's surprise at my appearance as she and Isobel came in from the locker rooms hardly registered. My eyes were on Isobel as she bounced over to talk to me, nearly tripping over her own feet in the process, but not seeming to notice. "You didn't come out and meet me this morning," she complained, poking her finger at my chest and grinning up at me.

My chest hurt as I watched her. She was just so much more _alive_ than anyone else I had ever met.

How was I supposed to ever, _ever_ let her go?

Whatever she saw in my expression sobered her, and her eyes narrowed as she studied my face. "Oh _hell_ ," she swore. "This isn't about Alice, is it? You really _are_ upset over me." I honestly didn't know what she was talking about, but she wasn't wrong. Both her hands closed around one of mine, the warmth of her skin combined with the warmth of her affection almost enough to set fire to me on the spot.

"Edward," she sighed, "you are _such_ an idiot."

At least, I supposed, we could agree on that much.


	36. Chapter 35

Note: This chapter was longer and more emotionally draining than I expected, and I _also_ managed to forget that yesterday was my one-year wedding anniversary (I'm so bad with dates, you guys, you have no idea). Camping was great, though! The Olympic Peninsula is even better than I remembered because kids are dumb and don't know the first thing about appreciating beauty. I think I might change some pictures around here, because I got some great ones in the Hoh Rainforest while I was getting eaten alive by mosquitoes.

Next week classes start up, so not sure how that's going to impact writing - maybe not at all (I'll have three hours each day on the bus to kill) or maybe quite a bit (classes are stressful), so we'll see how things go.

Lastly: this chapter is dedicated to any chemistry nerds who might be out there reading this.

* * *

XXXV.

Alice was waiting for me outside of trig when I got to school in the morning. She looked more unhappy than I had ever seen her before, with her eyes heart-breakingly wide and sad in her thin little face. Before I could even say hello, she had grabbed my hand and was pulling me off to the side of the building.

I already wasn't in the best mood. My morning had started out okay enough, but I was getting a little anxious as it got closer to time for Edward's final confession. On top of that, I was still not quite sure about our texted conversation the afternoon before. On top of _that_ , he hadn't been waiting for me this morning, which I had, without even fully realizing it, been counting on.

I mean, he had waited for me two mornings in a row before we had even started dating. His eye-rolls when I asked about the class he was missing made it perfectly clear that he didn't care in the least. Now, suddenly, he just wasn't going to come out to meet me? It didn't exactly inspire confidence.

"What's going on?" I asked Alice as she turned to look at me.

She let out a little huff of a sigh - almost like a sob, but not quite. "Okay. So," she took a breath, "I know this is the big afternoon - the one when Edward comes totally clean about everything he feels guilty for," she said, "but - he won't talk to me about _any_ of it. So...I thought maybe I could at least talk to you?"

Hmm. I added up everything I had noticed in the last twenty-four hours. It seemed like Alice and Edward really _were_ having some kind of conflict. Maybe that was why he hadn't met me this morning? I could see how it might be awkward to ask someone you were having a fight with to pick up your homework for you. It was a little surprising to me that Edward wasn't willing to put it aside long enough to get help for something that seemed as important to him as this whole confession thing did, but I didn't see a reason for his issues to stop _me_ from consulting the local oracle. "You think I'm going to pass up chances to get a glimpse of the future?" I asked Alice. "Because, spoiler alert - I'm not."

A ghost of a smile touched her lips at my light tone, but disappeared again just as quickly. She fixed her eyes on the ground and took a deep breath. "You're not going to like some of what he tells you. There's no way around that."

I felt my eyebrows go up. "Well, I wasn't exactly thrilled by the wanting-to-drink-my-blood revelation, less thrilled by the fact that you can see my interactions with other people any time you feel like it, and not at all thrilled by Edward's ability to invade minds. So just how _much_ am I going to 'not like' what he tells me?"

"A lot," Alice whispered. "How well you can take it depends in part on how he tells you, but you're going to be upset no matter what."

I swallowed. "Is it a deal-breaker?" I asked her flatly.

Her head-shake came more slowly than I was comfortable with. "Not if you hear him out until the end." She took another deep breath. "This is my advice - the best I can offer: listen to everything he has to say, and don't say anything you aren't certain that you mean. Your feelings aren't set in stone, but Edward will take whatever you say with Old Testament commandment seriousness." She made an irritated sound. "He's dense like that."

I spent a moment chewing on my lip and thinking it over. "You know - you could try easing me into whatever it is that's going to make me angry enough to say...whatever it is you see me saying. Tell me part of it. Tell me the way he _should_ tell me."

Alice fixed her eyes on my face. "I can't do that," she whispered. "Edward would _never_ forgive me and - I - he's my brother. He's my _brother_. I want to - but I can't. Please understand. You _do_ understand, don't you?"

Well...how could I say no to that? There were roughly comparable situations involving Charlie or my mom and a good friend like Angela that I could imagine, and I wouldn't necessarily choose a friend over family, either. "Yeah," I sighed, "I understand."

A spasm of - something - crossed Alice's face, and then she suddenly threw her arms around me. "I love you so much, Isobel. I just want everything to work out."

"Yeah, me too," I agreed, hugging her back tentatively - which was probably stupid. She was a vampire. What was I afraid of? That I would crush her?

She released me after a moment. "Okay," she sighed. "I've done everything I can. I hope it works. I _really_ hope it works. He's going to owe me so much for this if it does - and even more if it _doesn't_."

I patted her shoulder, uncertain what I could possibly say to that. It wasn't like I could reassure her that I generally wasn't big on holding grudges. She was undoubtedly more capable of telling _me_ how good at forgiveness I was than I was of telling _her_. She could _see_ it.

There was really nothing more to say, so we went in. Jessica, predictably, practically jumped me the moment I opened the door, demanding to hear "absolutely everything, every last detail, no matter how small" about my evening alone with Edward. Though there was no way that was happening - and, anyway, there wasn't time before class started - I did confirm that we had agreed that it was a date and that physical contact had been involved. I thought Mike looked a bit green - he was still sitting more or less with us during trig - as Jessica sighed blissfully over the small amount I had time to reveal. That was probably a good sign for Jess. If he got jealous of her infatuation with Edward, it meant he wanted to keep her attention for himself.

I told Jessica a little more after class on the walk over to the gym - made it up to the part where Edward had gotten hit on by what might have been the entire wait staff of Bella Italia - but had to start over, for June's sake, once we reached the locker room.

Not that I put much effort into my explanation for June, figuring that Jessica could fill her in on any details I left out. I was in a hurry. Edward hadn't met me outside before school, but this was a class we _shared_. He had to show up, right?

Whether he had to or not, he was there when Alice and I - finished changing well before Jessica and June - entered the gym. The three of us were almost the first ones there, which was helpful just in case I discovered I couldn't keep my hands off of him. It was a real struggle for those first few seconds, because _damn_ \- he looked so _good_ with that tousled hair, his golden eyes, and the way, even standing still, he managed to convey the inhuman grace that made so much more sense now that I knew he wasn't human. Our gym clothes were baggy and horrible, but Edward still managed to look like he had just stepped off a runway or a red carpet. Had it really been less than twenty-four hours since I last saw him? It felt like a lot longer.

I forgot my earlier conversation with Alice, forgot that I would be having a difficult conversation with Edward - forgot everything except that Edward was my boyfriend and I had, stupid as it might be, missed him.

Well - that and the fact that he had made me wait an _entire extra hour_ before seeing him again.

I marched up to him, unwilling to wait and find out if he intended to come to me. "You didn't come out to meet me this morning," I accused him, poking my finger into his very firm chest. Even though the words were a complaint, I could feel myself grinning like a total idiot as I looked up at him.

And then I stopped short.

I had never fully understood what "drinking in the sight" of someone meant. Not until that moment, when I looked up at Edward and found him watching me with so much longing that it took my breath away. Several things suddenly connected together in my mind, and I realized that it wasn't _Alice_ whom Edward was brooding over. Or - at least, if Alice had a part in it, it was because they were arguing about _me_ \- because he was brooding over me. Over us. Maybe over that difficult conversation we were going to have this afternoon. "Oh _hell_ ," I muttered, more to myself than him, before fixing him with me sternest gaze. "This isn't about Alice, is it? You really _are_ upset about me.

His nostrils flared slightly - confirmation enough. In spite of how good he looked and how much I wanted to, some shreds of restraint kept me from throwing my arms around him and kissing him right there in the middle of the gym - now beginning to fill rapidly. Instead I took one of his - rather large, I noticed for the first time - hands in both of mine. "Edward, you are _such_ an idiot," I grumbled at him, thinking about what Alice had told me before trig. Why wasn't he using her visions? Did he _want_ to make me angry at him?

I could work out the answer to that: he thought he deserved my anger, and so of course he was going to go ahead and court it.

Like an idiot.

He raised his free hand to my face and brushed it lightly before leaning in to whisper in my ear under the guise of kissing my cheek. "I know. We can talk after class."

There was a shrill sound behind me, and suddenly Edward was stepping away from me quickly. Someone grabbed my arm in a vise-like grip, and it took me a moment to understand that the strange sound I was hearing was someone talking to me. Or - more accurately, _babbling_ _at_ me.

It was Jessica. Obviously.

"...the way he _looked_ at you and then he _kissed_ you! Damn it, Isobel, you are the luckiest bitch in the entire world and I would completely hate you if I didn't love you so much! I can't believe you didn't tell me about..."

I pulled my eyes away from Edward's now-retreating form and turned to look at Jess, trying to make sense of what she was saying. "Huh?" I asked intelligently.

She slapped my arm lightly. "Oh my God, I am so jealous of you right now." She let out an annoyed puff of air. "I guess to get Edward's attention, I would have needed to be more tomboyish and like a million times smarter."

 _Tomboyish_? "Am I tomboyish?" I asked. "Aren't tomboys like...athletic and stuff?"

" _That's_ what you're getting from this conversation?!" she squealed, slapping me again.

"Well, that and I'm _not_ a million times smarter than you," I told her, rolling my eyes.

It was a good thing that the bell cut off any further conversation, then, or Jessica might _actually_ have murdered me.

I became aware, as I walked over to lay out my yoga mat, that Jessica wasn't the only one whose attention was on me - or on Edward. It seemed that our brief and fairly innocent display had captured the interest of pretty much the entire class. I supposed I should have expected that from the girls, but there were several boys watching Edward the way a number of the girls were watching me, which was a bit more surprising.

It seemed my novelty _still_ hadn't worn off.

Coach Clapp had trouble getting anyone to focus long enough to form teams for badminton - which normally would have amused me. Social drama, for teenagers, trumped just about anything teachers could find to throw at us. Usually I would have considered myself above it - but, well, Edward had a way of completely occupying my attention in a way that seemed suspiciously normal for my age and other various demographic details.

Laughing at Coach Clapp would have been nice, but my amusement felt a little sour right now. I was too anxious, still a little bewildered by being close to Edward, and, in addition, trying to figure out what use he thought _talking after class_ would be. Unless he meant after _all_ our classes - but he didn't need to remind me about that. I was all too aware that we would be talking then.

I glanced over at Edward and Alice a few times during over the course of the period. They had teamed up for the game, but didn't look too thrilled about it. Not that they ever looked thrilled about being in class. Still, I thought I could sense, even from a distance, an awkward silence between them. I was beginning to see that there might be drawbacks associated with being close to my boyfriend's sister. There might be times I ended up in between them.

On the other hand, that was certainly a lot more likely when it was _me_ they were arguing about.

After class, I found myself torn between hurrying to change so that I could meet Edward and find out what it was he wanted to say, and just letting it go since it couldn't possibly matter in a bigger picture kind of way. If anger happened to be my fate, I couldn't see Edward having much luck changing it with...whatever it was he wanted to say. He might even make it worse by trying to tell me things _immediately_ and in a rushed manner.

Besides, I was clearly as capable of finding social drama as distracting as anyone else my age, and I couldn't picture anything more dramatic than one's vampire boyfriend confessing to the murders he had committed in addition to (presumably) other so-far-unspecified sins.

Finding out all that in the _middle of the day_ was very likely to make me completely _useless_ in my afternoon classes. I was serious enough about grades and the pursuit of knowledge - what little pursuit occurred in high school - not to want that kind of distraction.

Alice decided for me as we made our way to the locker room by diverting Jessica from my date with and probable relationship to Edward with a bunch of questions about where things were headed between her and Mike. I took it to mean that I should do my best to escape from the Jessica Inquisition and go talk to my boyfriend.

I managed to slip out while June and Alice were debating the degree to which Mike seemed to like Jess - much to Jessica's anxiety and delight since they were both of the opinion that he was in reach, but Alice was arguing persuasively that he wasn't yet _caught_. It was possible I might have weighed in on that topic given what I had observed in trig, but I wasn't going to either go against Alice-the-psychic or waste the opportunity she had won for me.

Edward was waiting for me when I emerged from the building, running one hand repeatedly and apparently compulsively through his hair. He looked up as the door closed, his movement stilling. It would have been funny under other circumstances, seeing him standing frozen with one hand halfway through the act of combing through his messy hair.

Ah, I could not _wait_ until this day was over. Maybe I would be able to reclaim my sense of humor.

Although, given what Alice had told me - maybe not.

I realized that I was still standing by the door, just watching Edward. It was his turn to approach me this time - and he did, taking my hand when he was close enough and leading me a few steps away. I understood when the door opened a brief moment later and our classmates began to emerge.

"Will you walk with me?" Edward asked me in an undertone.

"Edward…" I sighed, thinking again about how useless this was.

"I won't keep you long," he promised quickly.

What else was I planning to do with my lunch? I was too anxious to be hungry. I nodded, taking his arm when he offered it and following him toward a more secluded part of the grounds.

"I wanted to apologize," he told me quietly as we walked.

We rounded the back of one of the buildings, shielding us from sight of the path that led to the cafeteria and therefore gaining us a reasonable degree of privacy. "You seem to do that a lot," I pointed out.

"It's because, as you mentioned earlier, I'm an idiot." It would have been a joke if his tone had been lighter, but he was serious.

I sensed there was more and, anyway, this conversation hadn't been my idea, so I waited in silence for him to continue.

He pulled his arm from mine and turned to face me, his hand finding its way to his hair again. "I thought...I _think_...that if I could just leave you alone, you would be fine. You would forget me. I wouldn't have to - do this. Hurt you."

He looked like he wanted to say more, so I waited a beat, but he didn't go on. "Look, Edward," I sighed after a moment, "you really need to make up your mind. I _will_ be hurt if you decide to leave me alone, but you're right - I would _eventually_ forget you. Well, not _forget_ , but I would move on and find someone else - "

He made a sound that was perilously close to a growl and his other hand immediately found its way to his hair.

I rolled my eyes before focusing a well-deserved glare on him. "Damn it, Edward, you're the one who _brought it up_." This was exactly what I meant about making up his mind. He couldn't both be all, "I should leave you for your own good" _and_ excessively possessive. That wasn't how this worked. He only retained a claim on me as long as we were, you know, _together_.

"I know," he rumbled, sounding sullen.

He was acting like deciding whether to stay or go was a life-and-death decision, and it abruptly struck me how ridiculous he was being. We had known each other for all of about two weeks, subtracting that first week when he had mostly been gone. People didn't get attached this fast, did they? Not if it was more than an infatuation, anyway. Right?

Right?

Because...the crazy thing was that I understood why he felt the way he did. It wasn't like we were two halves of a whole or anything stupid like that. I was a whole person all on my own, thank you very much. But I did find myself...drawn to him. Not like two incomplete things, but maybe more like...two atoms, one negatively charged and one positively charged, finding, when they formed an ionic bond, that they became something with properties of both and neither. It was just - comfortable? - being with him. Maybe "comfortable" was the wrong word - we argued half the time, I occasionally wanted to smack him, and when things were going well it was more "electric" than "comfortable." But it felt _right_ \- even the arguing.

And it was a good metaphor, because there was definitely a positive/negative contrast going on here. If we were salt, Edward was the chloride and I was the sodium - which actually worked out pretty well since sodium was not only the positive ion, but also, in its pure state, reacted explosively with water. Of the two of us, I was _clearly_ more likely to react explosively to common substances. Edward undoubtedly went with his habitual "depressed and broody" whenever he encountered something that didn't sit well with him.

I reached out and grabbed his wrist, tugging his hand from his hair so that I could hold it in both of mine - the same way I had earlier, in the gym. "You realize that I can't tell you what you should do, right? And, even more, I shouldn't _have_ to. If I didn't want to be with you, I wouldn't be - and it's as simple as that. I know what I want. It isn't fair for you to keep wavering over what _you_ want. If it's that hard to decide," I had to pause and take a deep breath, swallowing the lump of fear and hurt that suddenly formed in my throat. "If it's that hard for you to decide," I tried again, "then we should just end things now before I get any more attached to you. I don't want to spend weeks or months or years or however long waiting to see if you're going to decide to stick around."

He stared at me, stricken, for a moment - and then I was suddenly in his arms, even though I hadn't seen him move. "Isobel," he growled in my ear, sending shivers down my spine, "you are _all_ I want. If I ever walked away from you, it would only be because I want whatever is best for _you_ more than I want what is best for _me_."

I blinked, a little surprised by his intensity and feeling like maybe I should find it off-putting. Hadn't I just been reflecting on the fact that we hadn't known each other long? But - that wasn't how I felt. At all. Edward could growl protestations of devotion in my ear all day, every day as far as I was concerned. "Why don't you let _me_ worry about what's best for me?" I grumbled around the Edward-related electricity that was doing its best to short-circuit my thoughts. "Unlike _some_ people, I'm not into self-flagellation - "

He pulled back a little, cutting me off. "Wait, am I 'some people'?"

"Uh, yes?" I replied, thinking that much had to be obvious.

His brows drew together as he stared at me in confusion.

"Oh come on," I snorted. "You really think I wouldn't notice how much you love wallowing in guilt and moaning about how you don't deserve to be happy because of all the bad things you've done?"

"I don't do that!" he snapped, scowling.

"Maybe not out loud, but it's written _all over_ your face and voice. The only way it could be more obvious is if you dressed in _literal_ sackcloth and covered yourself in ashes." I poked my finger into his chest. "You're probably _glad_ I'm going to be angry at you this afternoon, because you think it's what you deserve."

His eyes widened. "You're going to…what? How do you…? How _would_ you…?"

Oh, right - he and Alice weren't speaking. Couldn't he read her mind though? And hadn't they had class together right before her class with me? Maybe his mind-reading thing really did have some fairly serious limitations. "Alice," I said simply, figuring that he could work the rest out himself.

He gave a sharp nod and then released me slowly. "We should go in," he said.

"Edward," I groaned, sensing that whatever progress we had made during this conversation had just been erased by my clumsy words.

"I promised to eat with your friends today," he reminded me, his voice hollow. Before I could think of a way to address his apparent despair, he brought his fingers to my cheek, further scattering my thoughts. "I want you to remember me - to _think_ of me - as someone who keeps his promises," he said leaning in to place a light kiss on my lips.

Ugh, did he really think he was fooling anyone? Still...was this really worth arguing over now? Maybe we - _I_ \- should focus on getting through this afternoon.

"Fine," I huffed - further irritated a moment later when he didn't offer me his hand or arm. It seemed like maybe this afternoon was just the _start_ of the things we were going to need to deal with, because I was going to actually try that wooden-stake-through-the-ribs thing if Edward continued to insist on mimicking the negatively-charged chloride I had mentally compared him to _this_ closely. _I_ grabbed _his_ hand and pulled him toward the cafeteria.

At least he didn't fight it.

We were both pretty distracted through the rest of lunch, and I'm not sure how we would have made it without Alice. Somehow she managed to keep most of the attention at the table focused on herself - I wasn't paying much attention to what it was she was talking about, but something to do with a weekend shopping trip to Seattle sometime later in the year.

Thankfully I didn't have any afternoon classes with Jessica; June wasn't nearly as persistent. Though she was obviously curious about both my date with Edward on Saturday and what was up with us today, she didn't press me for details. I just told her that Edward's negativity was bugging me, and she spent the rest of our walk and time before class trying to cheer me up with jokes about pessimists and emo kids.

Angela was even more discreet, which was useful since we had Spanish with Edward. We both arrived a couple of minutes before he and his brother did - long enough for her ask me if everything was okay. I sighed and answered that I thought it would be, but couldn't be completely certain yet. "I'll call you if I need to talk," I promised in an undertone as the door opened and Edward came in, followed closely by Emmett.

"Okay," Angela mouthed at me with a smile before settling back in her seat.

She was such a good friend - she and Alice were _both_ good friends. I was going to be so angry if things with me and Edward hurt my friendship with Alice.

Edward sat behind me, like he usually did. I was inclined to be annoyed that he didn't try to hold my hand or anything, but was also aware that I was being a little unfair. What was he going to do? Spend the period leaned way over his desk so that he could reach me? Classrooms weren't set up to make hand-holding easy - probably on purpose.

I really didn't pay much attention to what we were doing, instead doodling in my notebook to make it look like I might be taking notes while worrying fruitlessly. And _that_ was precisely the reason I hadn't really wanted a serious lunchtime talk with Edward. When the bell for the end of class rang, I was so involved in my own thoughts that it actually startled me. Everyone around me was finished packing up by the time I started - including Angela. She left with a wave while I was still gathering up my things - and then it was the moment of reckoning. I turned to look at Edward.

"I thought perhaps we might drive up one of the forest access roads for some privacy," he said before I could ask.

I nodded. "Should we drive separately or do you want to follow me home so that I can drop off my truck?"

He hesitated, an emotion that I couldn't quite name flitting across his face. "I'll follow you home," he said.

I was a little too anxious to feel completely comfortable driving - but I was well aware that it might be worse after our conversation. Anxiety was a lot better than anger.

Ten minutes later, I was somewhat determinedly admiring the lavish interior of Edward's car, trying not to think about what was coming next. "What kind of car is this?" I asked him, mostly just to say something, as I ran my hand over the wood on the upper part of the door.

"It's a 2010 Aston Martin DB9 Volante," he answered.

I nodded, trying to look as if his words made any kind of sense to me. "It's, um, nice," I said.

The smile he offered in response didn't quite reach his eyes, but I appreciated the effort. "It's my favorite car," he told me.

"Oh," I replied. "It looks...fast?"

This time his smile was a little better. "It is fast, though the coupe version is faster. Sometimes I like to watch the stars while I drive, so I opted for the Volante version of the DB9 - which just means that it's a convertible."

"Oh," I said again with another nod. Phil had a convertible, though it was incredibly old and not very attractive, so pretty much the opposite of Edward's - what did he call it? An Austin Martin? Whatever. It was possible that Phil's convertible was one of the things that first piqued my mother's interest in him. I had always privately thought so. She liked things that were exciting and made her feel adventurous. I had to admit that driving at night with the top down - especially in Arizona, where the stars often looked close enough to reach out and touch - was a little bit magical. I thought about telling Edward about it, but couldn't quite find the words. It was like everything I wanted to say had to make it through the obstacle course that was my anxiety over the immediate future. There was just no way to have a normal conversation.

Maybe Edward was thinking the same thing, because we lapsed into silence.

It only took a few minutes to reach the forest access road. Edward pulled onto it carefully and drove a short distance - just until we were within the trees. Ahead maybe a quarter of a mile was a gate blocking the road. If it had been summer, I might have suggested jumping it and finding a nice place to sit outside, but that obviously wasn't feasible at the tail end of January.

I let out a slow breath. "So," I began, "how are you going to organize this? Put the worst stuff out there first, or try to ease me into it?"

"I'll start with the worst," Edward said, his expression as cold and hard as marble. "I've killed people," he continued without pausing, "and my murders weren't like Alice's - the next thing to accidental. I knew from the first that it was possible to subsist on animals, and for the first five decades - five decades and a little more - after Carlisle turned me, that was what I did."

My brow furrowed in concern as I watched him, trying to match up the infuriatingly noble, ultra-responsible boy I was looking at with what he had just told me. "What changed?" I asked.

"I thought I could have it all," he answered, his voice rough with regret and more than a touch of despair. "Because I can...read minds, I thought that it meant - I thought I could enjoy human blood while remaining selective in my choice of prey. I - stalked through cities, looking for murderers, rapists, child molesters. Chicago was first, then later Toronto, Montreal, New York, and New Orleans, and then Glasgow, Edinburgh, Oslo, and Manchester. Finally, in 1985, I went to London."

He fell silent. "What happened in London?" I asked after a moment of waiting.

Even with my prompting, he didn't answer immediately, instead taking a deep breath and closing his eyes. I wondered if my scent ever bothered him when we shared and enclosed space like this. He never gave any indication of it, if so. "A man I was stalking went to see a show on the West End," he said slowly, forcibly focusing my thoughts back on the present. "It was _Les Miserables_ \- opening night. I - listened to the first song, watching through the eyes of various members of the audience. I was a little impatient with the delay, but less so than I might have been had he been doing anything else. Music is, after all, what I do." He paused to glance at me and I nodded for him to go on, trying not to let my trepidation show. I wasn't certain that I agreed with his assessment of his guilt, but I also wasn't certain I wanted to hear any details about a murder he had committed.

He turned his eyes to stare out the windshield as he went on speaking. "By the end of that first song, I was completely enthralled. It was the first time in - months, maybe - that Carlisle had been brought so powerfully to the front of my mind. Jean Valjean's condition - a prisoner condemned simply for trying to do what was right - had so many parallels to Carlisle's that I found myself inescapably reminded of him. I forgot my prey entirely. Afterward, I went back to the abandoned house where I had been staying and spent an hour or more staring at my reflection in a mirror that someone had left behind in one of the rooms. Vampires who drink human blood have red eyes. For decades mine had been golden, and looking in that mirror I realized that I had become a monster."

I should have known he wouldn't force any gory details on me. One of his hands lay on the center console, looking lonely, so I covered it with mine. "Is that when you went home?" I asked.

He stared at my hand for a moment before turning his eyes to me, looking confused. "Yes," he said quietly. "Or - no, not immediately. I - was too ashamed. I spent a week sneaking into shows of _Les Mis_ , and every time it felt more like I heard Carlisle singing _Bring Him Home_ directly to me. It - _pulled_ at me. Finally I broke down and decided I would _beg_ for his forgiveness. It was never necessary, though - Carlisle forgave me freely before I even had a chance to ask."

"And that started your obsession with _Les Mis_ ," I said. "Well," I continued as he nodded, still looking a little perplexed, "I'm sorry you had to go through all that."

"Isobel…" he began, his brows drawing together, "you're missing the - "

"No, I'm not," I cut him off. "You feel terrible that you killed all those people, and now you believe that I should _think_ you're terrible for doing it. I'm not missing anything."

"But - "

"I'm not finished," I told him. "Don't get me wrong, I don't think it was _good_ that you were going around eating people - even bad people. But I mostly think it wasn't good _for you_. I'm not going to waste any tears on a bunch of absolutely awful people who probably _did_ deserve to die. If that's the worst you've got, then Alice is going to be glad to find out that she completely misread the future."

He squeezed his eyes closed and let out a long breath. "No." His hand slipped free of mine to bury itself in his hair. "Damn." He looked at me again. "I'm sorry, Isobel. I really thought that what I just told you would be the worst. But the next part - well, it concerns things I've done to you personally."

To me personally? What could he have possibly done to me? I didn't remember anything - and I really thought I would remember if he had done something. Under normal circumstances, I found grudges too exhausting to maintain, but it didn't mean I _forgot_. "What are you talking about?" I asked.

"The night after the accident with Tyler - " he began, and then cut himself off. "No, let me back up a little. That accident frightened me."

"It frightened me, too," I reminded him. "It happened _to_ me."

He waved that off. "It wasn't until I came that close to losing you that it became clear how important you were to me."

I felt the confusion on my own face. "Edward, we didn't even _speak_ until that day."

"Even so," he said, his eyes not quite meeting mine. "I - maybe it was because it was such a near thing. That was the day I truly became obsessed with your safety, so obsessed that I - that I found no interest, no rest, in any of my usual pursuits. And so...I went to your house…"

I felt my chest tighten.

"I - wasn't there to listen in on your...life. I - went late enough that you and your father were already asleep. I just - wanted to hear you breathing, to hear your heart beating, so that I would know you were safe." His eyes finally met mine, silently pleading with me to understand.

It occurred to me that I was holding my breath and let it out slowly. "That's…" I began, and then stopped, uncertain what I wanted to say. On the one hand, there was something a little bit sweet about it. On the other, it was sort of creepy. We hadn't even _known_ each other at that point. "Okay. That's...not amazing. I think I can forgive you for it, but please don't keep doing it."

"I already stopped," he muttered. "I stopped because - "

Oh God, I thought, watching the play of emotion across his face, please let it be because he just realized all on his own that it was weird.

He rubbed his forehead, which morphed into several long tugs at his hair. "There's a reason I reacted as I did to the accident," he said slowly. "I told you before that vampires are territorial. That is - only really true where our mates are concerned. We - mate for life, and with very little say in the matter. When it happens, it just - " he shook his head. "There are powerful instincts associated with mating, and it - simply takes over."

Oh no. No. I could see where this was headed. "You are _not_ trying to say that _I'm_ your mate," I told him flatly. "We met for the first time _three weeks ago_. I am _seventeen_. Soulmates aren't real! Love at first sight isn't real! And even if it were, it wouldn't be real for someone _my_ age - a completely inexperienced, still sort-of-immature teenager!" Even as I said it, though, I thought of the analogy I had made for myself during lunch. We did...fit together. Was that what he was talking about?

"It's not real for _you_ ," Edward insisted, his voice rough. "It _is_ all too real for _us_ \- though I wouldn't use the term 'soulmate.' It implies some sort of romantic bliss - and not all pairs even manage to be _happy_ together."

I sat back and studied him. Maybe he wasn't talking about that fitting together thing if it only applied to him. Or maybe he didn't know as much about humans as he thought he did. Maybe, though, it also didn't matter right now. I had the feeling that I really needed to know what had caused him to stop haunting my house. "Fine, whatever. Let's just say for the sake of argument that I believe you." It was obvious, at least, that _he_ believed what he was saying.

He spent a moment doing his marble statue impression, staring out the windshield. "I followed you on your date with Tyler," he told me abruptly.

Hold on - _what_? I suddenly felt as though _I_ had been turned to marble.

Edward continued, either not noticing or disregarding my sudden stillness: "He - wanted things from you that I didn't think you were prepared to offer. I thought - if I stayed nearby, I could rescue you if he tried to hurt you."

I hardly heard his explanation, still trying to assimilate the first thing he had told me. My entire body went hot, and then cold, and then hot again - and the whole world seemed to be spinning. No, not spinning - retreating. My chest felt tight and there was a pain in my throat - and oh God, was I having a heart attack?

No, wait - I didn't even need to press my fingers to my pulse to feel my fast-but-steady heartbeat. No fluttering or stuttering. Not a heart attack. It was hard to breathe, though. Or maybe too easy? Was I supposed to be breathing this fast? I suddenly couldn't remember what normal breathing was supposed to feel like. Definitely not like the air was saturated with _nausea_ , though. Right? Actually, I realized, this sort of felt familiar. Sort of like...when I smelled blood.

Ah, I thought, feeling suddenly wise as my stomach went from stirring unpleasantly to threatening all-out revolt, I was having a panic attack. Right, right. Just a panic attack brought on by the fact that my vampire boyfriend was _stalking me_.

That last thought made me gag, and I threw the door open just in time to avoid vomiting all over the pristine interior of Edward's favorite car.

On the bright side, I thought as I coughed up everything I had eaten all day - mercifully not much - I couldn't say anything I didn't mean while I was busy throwing up. Alice would be happy about that, right?

I became aware of Edward's hands holding my hair back as I spat a few times, trying to rid my mouth of the taste of bile. An involuntary shudder went through me as he laid one hand on my shoulder. "Don't touch me," I snapped, sitting up again. He immediately withdrew his hands, and I found him staring at them blankly when I turned to look at him.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "If it makes anything better, that was the last time I attempted to keep track of you for my own peace of mind. I realized when I saw what Tyler did - and how you reacted - that I was no better than he was."

He raised his gaze to meet mine, but this time it was my turn to flinch away. I pressed the heels of my palms to my eyes. They were already wet with tears from throwing up, but I felt like I might really start crying - maybe hysterically - at any moment. "I can't deal with this right now," I muttered, thinking once more of Alice's advice. I'd heard Edward out, but if I was to avoid saying anything I might not mean later, I needed to not say anything at all. Right now it was impossible to tell what I might or might not mean later.

Oh God, I couldn't believe he had _followed_ me. I had _trusted_ him. It...it _hurt_. It hurt _so much_.

I swallowed a sob.

I just...needed to go home.

"I'll take you home," Edward murmured.

My head snapped around and I pierced him with an accusing glare, the words tumbling out before I even had time to consider them: " _You said you couldn't read my mind!_ "

He stared at me in shock for a moment. "I can't," he said finally, looking completely bewildered, before understanding began to dawn. "I can't," he repeated, bleak despair settling over his features. "I simply thought - you probably wanted to go home."

Oh. Primed to distrust him, I had jumped to the worst possible conclusion just because our thoughts happened to coincide. Sorry, Alice, I thought - I definitely messed that one up. "Sorry," I whispered - Alice wasn't the only one who deserved an apology.

Edward just shook his head and turned on the car.

I spent the ride back to my house staring out the window, alternately struggling not to cry and digging my nails into my palms in anger. The thought of Edward coming to my house and following me on a date kept poking at me, stirring up and stoking my fury. Tucked into the edges of my thoughts, though, was another image and a different piece of fuel for my anger: Edward's face, blank with misery as I struggled not to unleash _all_ my ire on him - ire that was, incidentally, _wholly justified_.

Why wasn't he fighting to defend himself? What happened to "vampires mate for life"? It seemed to me that you didn't just _give up_ on something that supposedly meant so much to you.

Ugh. It was all...so...confusing.

Edward pulled into the driveway at my house and stopped the car. I turned to look at him, feeling the need to set down some boundaries about how things were going to be between us until I figured out exactly what I thought and how I felt. He wasn't there, though, and the next moment my door opened seemingly of its own accord.

That wasn't it at all, of course - Edward was opening the door for me. As if that would make me feel better about anything.

Not fair, I knew - it was obvious from his face that he had no hope that a little misplaced chivalry would help. It was obvious he had no hope at _all_.

I got out of the car and then paused beside the door. "I can't deal with this right now," I told him again, not looking directly at him. "So at school - I don't think we should talk, or hang out at lunch, or in class. _Don't_ come to my house. _D_ _on't_ listen in on my conversations with my friends." Not that I would be able to check on whether or not Edward followed those instructions, but I wanted to make it clear that his impulses that direction were _not okay_ , since apparently he was a little unclear on that point. I felt a fresh wave of resentment just thinking about it, and, remembering the days following his return from wherever he had spent most of that first week - when I had found him staring at me practically every time I looked up - I added: "I don't even want you to _look_ at me."

I knew that demand, at least, was unfair as soon as the words left my mouth, but I couldn't quite bring myself to take it back. Maybe...maybe if I felt differently in a day or two, I would pass a message through Alice. If _she_ was speaking to me.

I risked a glance at him, trying to judge his reaction. Edward's eyes were fixed on the top of the door, his face as blank as the stone it seemed to be carved from - pretty much like it had been ever since I had completely lost it earlier. His expression - or, rather, his complete _lack_ of an expression - struck me again, and I wrapped my arms around myself as it really occurred to me for the first time that he had been expecting this outcome all along.

No - that wasn't right. He expected _worse_ than this outcome. He expected that, when the dust settled, I would believe that he was utterly depraved and completely unworthy of my time or regard.

That realization stabbed through me almost as sharply as his stalker revelation had, and I found my eyes filling with tears as my chest expanded and then contracted rapidly - oh God, I was going to start hyperventilating. I really _could not_ deal with this right now, because if I tried there was a fair chance I was going to pass out.

I turned away quickly, forcing my lungs to still through the simple expedient of holding my breath, and marched toward the front door and away from Edward. There was no sound of the car door closing, and so that last image of him remained burned into my mind, making me wonder if vampires ever became so apathetic that they _actually_ turned into the stone they often appeared to be sculpted from.

If Edward tried something like that I was - I would - I _swore_ I would take a goddamned sledgehammer to him because fuck him and his stupid, counterproductive, defeatist, only-slightly-justified (sometimes) self-loathing.

Everything was wrong and I was angry at Edward and myself - and maybe the rest of the world for good measure - so I did the only thing that made any sense at all: I stalked up to my room, curled myself around a pillow on my bed, and proceeded to cry myself to sleep.

* * *

Note: Moral of the story: _don't be a stalker_.

Those of you who have been dying to see Edward get smacked around a little (you know who you are) are probably going to enjoy the next chapter.


	37. Chapter 36

XXXVI.

Finished.

Everything was finished.

I forced myself to remain in place, listening as Isobel strode away from me, as she stomped up her stairs, and as she threw herself on her bed and began crying.

This was what I would remember - this failure. This was what I would take with me to my grave. If I had been human - or more principled - or _less_ principled - if I had been nearly _anyone_ other than myself, none of this might have happened. She wouldn't have walked away from me, and I wouldn't have made her cry.

I got in my car and pulled out of the driveway in a haze of almost apathetic gloom, knowing that I needed to go home, but uncertain how to care enough to make it back. It would be easier just to drive - drive until I ran out of gas, and then get out and run. Or walk. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered.

With a sigh and a conscious exercise of will, I pulled myself together. No matter how inevitable my death was now that Isobel and I had reached this point, there were things I needed to do before I went crazy. I owed it to my family to say goodbye, for one thing. For another, I wanted to be certain that Alice would keep her eye on Isobel's future whether I was there or not. Isobel knew enough about us that I didn't want to leave her wholly unprotected.

After that - I would need to decide where to go, not run away haphazardly. I didn't want to put anyone else in danger when I lost control of myself. I certainly didn't want to find myself stalking Isobel either in my capacity as a jealous lover _or_ as a thirsty vampire.

Perhaps I might even go to Volterra. If any group of vampires could keep me from becoming a danger, it was surely the Volturi.

Or, given the fondness the Volturi's de facto leader, Aro, had for witches with the sorts of unusual abilities Alice and I displayed, they might simply decide the most expedient course was to turn Isobel in order to keep me sane. Besides her importance to me, she, after all, had that mental silence that Alice had already predicted would pique Aro's interest.

So Volterra was out. What other options did I have?

There had to be other options somewhere...

None immediately came to mind, though, and, in spite of knowing that I needed to think and plan, I fell to brooding for a few minutes over what I had lost. I wondered if, on some level, I wouldn't prefer it if someone took the choice away from me and turned Isobel without consulting either of us.

I wondered: was I that selfish?

Of course I was, and the only thing standing between me and that selfishness was my determination to do what was _right_. In order to do what was right, I needed to stop wallowing and _think_.

The first thing I had to deal with was my family, so I should start there. It was after school, so, minus Carlisle, they would likely all be at home. Had Alice been watching my afternoon play out? Would they know?

They weren't going to let me end my life without some kind of struggle. In particular, Alice, Emmett and Jasper were likely to try talking me into turning Isobel again - and Esme might be right there with them.

And if I continued to resist, they might choose to do what was best for me even without my consent - just like the Volturi.

This was not a contingency I had planned for. Rosalie would be on my side, at least, as would Carlisle, no doubt…

Well, the first step was to get close enough to the house that I could hear what my siblings - and possibly my mother - were thinking about without any of them being aware that I was nearby. I had no desire to deal with them right now. All I really wanted to do at the moment - besides anything that involved getting closer to Isobel either legitimately or surreptitiously, of course - was run away and howl my grief out at the sky. But - I had already committed to giving up my sanity and life for her protection; I couldn't balk at dealing with my family for her.

The time for destructive mourning was coming. For now I was still capable of fighting against my own selfishness, and to do that I needed to keep myself together.

I pulled my car off the road a couple of miles away from home, and cast my mind that direction, prepared to spend as long as necessary listening to thoughts and conversations.

To my surprise, the house seemed largely deserted. I heard only one set of thoughts within or anywhere nearby - Rosalie had taken over the living room with three large whiteboards and was working on one of her favorite on-going projects: an analytic solution for the _n_ -body problem in physics.

It was nice to know, I supposed, that _someone_ wasn't agonizing over details of my personal life that were no one's business but my own. It was like Rosalie to take advantage of everyone else's preoccupation by moving into and claiming what was usually communal space, but that made it all the more likely that she would tell me where the rest of the family had gone - if only to get me out of her way faster.

I pulled back onto the road and finished my drive.

Rosalie's thoughts flickered to me as I opened the door - it seemed she had been expecting me, probably courtesy of Alice - but her mind was focused on the math and theorems that covered her boards.

"Hold on," she grumbled as I stepped into the living room, crossing out one set of equations and scrawling a few keywords that probably made sense to _her_ , at least, beneath them. "Okay," she sighed surveying the result, her mind still hardly on me at all, "before I answer what I know you're dying to ask, I have one question for you: are you giving up on Isobel because you would rather die than turn her?"

I felt my brows furrow, sensing suddenly that maybe Rosalie wasn't as focused on her physics problem as I had assumed. And yet...her thoughts _were_ centered on it, and she hadn't so much as glanced at me. "No," I said slowly. "I'm afraid that you're right about that much: I'm too selfish not to choose her if she were to choose me." _Not_ choosing her felt like ripping my own heart out - or, well, not my _heart_ , since it was no longer necessary. But something that might be said to be similarly vital for vampires.

I was too focused on my own hurt to immediately notice the change in Rosalie's thoughts.

By the time I _did_ notice, it was too late.

In an instant, she was on top of me. Instinct took over, thankfully, since my mind was still trying to catch up, and I began fighting back as she tried to wrestle me onto my stomach. "What are you _doing_?" I snarled at her, unwilling to do more than fend her off until I better understood what was going on. Somehow, incredibly, she was still managing to _mostly_ think about math, combined with her immediate responses to my actions, rather than anything that might hint at her motives.

She was getting uncomfortably good at this mental smokescreen thing she did with math. I decided, as I tried unsuccessfully to throw her off of me, that was never going to trust her again when she was focused on some sort of equation or theorem. It should be an easy resolution to keep, considering how little time I had left.

Her only audible answer was a grunt, but my question triggered a handful of memories that managed, once again, to paralyze me very briefly with shock.

"Alice saw _what_?" I exploded as Rose finally managed to force me onto my stomach. "Rosalie!" I yelled when, instead of answering, she began binding my hands with something - a bike lock cord?

"Don't bother to struggle," she told me. "Alice and Emmett tested the tensile strength of several of these, and he couldn't pull this one apart at all. So unless you've got a pair of wire cutters up your ass - which might explain a lot, actually - you're not going to break this. I'm going to use some tubular webbing and a beer knot to tie the ends together, so pulling will just make it tighter - and Emmett got a good-quality locking carabiner as a backup."

"Rosalie, I don't _care_ about your new bondage fetish," I growled. "Tell me what Alice saw!"

"Why would I do that?" she asked. "She only told me enough to convince me to help. If you want the full story, you're going to need to get it from her - which you will as soon as I text her."

I felt her weight shift and knew she was reaching into her pocket for her phone. "Look," she continued as she sent the text, "if you were acting this way out of a principled desire to leave Isobel alive as a human, I wouldn't interfere. But if you're just flailing around haphazardly, you need to know what Alice has to say before you resign yourself to losing your mate and going nuts. Even though we don't always get along, you're still my brother and I _don't_ want you dead." She paused, wondering if what she had said sounded too sentimental. "I mean," she continued, her eye-roll evident in her voice, "do you even _know_ how impossible Esme and Alice would be to live with? Not to mention _Emmett_. It's bad enough when a boy loses his puppy, but when a puppy - Emmett in this case - loses his boy? Just _pathetic_."

Under other circumstances, I would have smiled at her unwillingness to admit to any real affection for me, but right now I was too irritated. "You don't need to tie me up," I snarled at her. "I want to hear what Alice has to say. And couldn't _she_ have told you that I wasn't acting on principle?"

"Maybe it's escaped your notice, but I can't read minds, Edward," she responded tartly. "I don't trust you not to take off running, just like I didn't trust Alice not to say whatever was expedient to get my help. Alice is very much an 'ends justify the means' person, in case that has _also_ escaped your notice."

She did have a point about Alice - a point I would have appreciated more had she not _tied me up_. Though...that smacked of the sort of idea Alice would have come up with, too. Or Emmett - I fully expected that he would have a good laugh when he came in and saw me trussed up on the floor, with his mate's knee pressed against my back to hold me in place.

Rose's text must have done its job, because I heard the minds of our siblings - and Esme - returning. Emmett and Jasper were making snarky jokes about me, while Alice was an all-too-familiar ball of stubborn determination. Esme was just worried - about me, about Isobel, about the lengths she had let Alice go to in order to force me to hear her out. From her mind, I learned that Carlisle had agreed that the intervention was necessary, but had objected enough to the means that he hadn't even tried to get any time off to come home for this. It surprised me that he agreed at all - I would have expected him to value Isobel's humanity more highly than that.

But, then again, if what I had glimpsed in Rosalie's mind were true…

I didn't understand, though, how Alice could come to the conclusion that _I_ was _Isobel's_ mate. Humans didn't have mates, not like vampires did. As Rose had, I suspected it was some sort of trick on Alice's part. Rosalie, as she had pointed out to me herself, wouldn't necessarily be able to tell, because she couldn't read Alice's mind.

I didn't know what a trick like that would solve, though. And...if it weren't a trick, but the truth...it would change - well, _everything_.

So I wouldn't run away, because I had to know.

"You can untie him now," Alice called out as she came inside. _Sorry,_ she thought at me. _Isobel did pretty well at keeping herself under control, but if she hadn't - if you had told her differently or if some of her stronger feelings had managed to slip out - it_ really _would have been necessary._

Hold on, Isobel hadn't expressed her strongest feelings? And why would she hold back if she was breaking things off with me?

Rosalie took her knee off my spine and helped me sit up as I tried to make sense of Alice's thoughts. She was already deftly untying my hands as the others entered the room. In spite of my sudden uncertainty regarding what, precisely, had happened today, I cast a sullen glare at Alice, not at all ready to forgive her for this indignity.

"Well," Rose sighed before I could decide what to say, "I'm off, then."

"Aw, come on, baby - you don't want to stay and watch our little brother get his ass handed to him?" Emmett wheedled. "Emotionally speaking, of course."

"I'm older than both of you," I growled at them. It was true in an absolute sense, even if I _had_ been turned at a younger age.

Rose ignored both me and Emmett's half-joking tone. "No. I played my part against my better judgment, and I'm done now."

"Thanks, Rose," Alice told her softly.

"Yeah, whatever," she sighed. "I'm going driving, so don't come looking for me."

We all watched her stalk fluidly from the room.

"She gonna be okay?" Emmett asked me in an undertone as we heard the side door slam.

I fixed him with a cold look to let him know that, even though I was answering, he was unequivocally on my shit list. "She's upset that she has, once again, chosen someone she cares about over her principles," I answered, listening to Rosalie's thoughts spin unhappily. At least she could admit to _herself_ that she cared about me, even if she had an aversion to saying it - or even implying it - out loud.

"She'll deal with it the same way she has been for the last however-many decades," Alice added with a sigh after a quick check of the future, "and by tomorrow the pretentious bitch facade we all know and love will be firmly back in place."

Emmett gave her a goofy smile. "I really love that facade."

She patted his arm. "Believe us - we know. We couldn't avoid knowing if we tried."

"Especially when you're _loving it_ four or five times a night," Jasper muttered from the corner where he had stationed himself.

"Children," Esme interrupted, recalling them to the task at hand before Emmett could do more than grin proudly.

I looked at Alice and she looked back at me. "Humans don't have mates," I told her.

"Apparently that's not true - at least not when a vampire is involved," she replied.

That smirk she turned on me when she had something really amazingly clever to tell me - or at least when she _thought_ it was amazingly clever - began peeking out, so I waited, unable to pick up her news from her carefully-blanked mind.

Emmett, not one to understand or enjoy cat-and-mouse games, jumped into an explanation well before Alice got tired of drawing out the anticipation. "After we talked - you know, last night - I wondered if humans really _didn't_ feel the mating bond. I couldn't think of anyone we've ever heard of who found themselves mated to a human without immediately turning him or her, though, so I started asking around - "

"And when he asked me," Alice said, taking over with a touch of irritation at his spoiling of her dramatic moment, "I realized that we really _didn't_ know. Since you wouldn't talk to me, things were set to go pretty badly between you and Isobel. That gave me a chance to look at futures in which she lost you, either because she broke things off or you stormed off and set yourself on fire in misplaced despair…" She rolled her eyes expressively. "At first, I was just looking at what happened if I asked her about her feelings right after, but I realized that didn't _prove_ anything. Although - she _is_ pretty attached to you, Edward," Alice's eyes brightened and went sort of dreamy looking, "probably even in love with you, although she doesn't know to call it that since it's her first time."

A shiver of mingled pleasure and pain went through me. Could it possibly be true? I wanted it - _her_ \- so much that I feared the very strength of me feelings would make any kind of parity between us impossible. And...what did it mean for where things stood now?

"It was harder to look further into the future, of course," Alice went on, "but I was _very_ determined to find Isobel again in five, ten, twenty years and find out how she was doing and what she thought of you, so I managed to get a few glimpses." She began mentally spreading out her visions for my benefit, so that I could try to spot whatever it was she had seen.

Only to be interrupted. "Tell him about what you figured out!" Emmett demanded before I had a chance to examine much of anything.

She shot him an irritated look. This was why Alice and Emmett - _thankfully_ \- didn't usually conspire together. Both liked conspiracies, but Alice had a decided flair for dramatic presentation, while Emmett was too impatient to care for those sorts of niceties. He blurted everything out more or less instantly, much to Alice's all-too-apparent dismay.

Alice shot him a glare that he either didn't notice or entirely disregarded. "Isobel _does_ feel the mating bond," she said with a sniff, "but there's a key difference between her and you - between humans and vampires - that makes it less...all-consuming, I suppose you might say. I'm surprised it didn't occur to me before. Losing you wouldn't be as devastating for her as it is for you for one simple reason: she can _forget_."

She could forget _me_? For a moment I didn't understand - how was it a mating bond if she could forget me?

Then it dawned on me. Alice had specifically left off the reference to _me_ for a reason. Humans were capable of forgetting in general - in fact, they were _incapable_ of _remembering_ with any kind of clarity. I retained enough memories from my own life and had read enough books to know that it encompassed even those things - _and people_ \- they would rather remember. "Time heals all wounds" had not become a cliche because of some magic that the passage of time carried - rather humans were naturally incapable of truly holding on to any past pain _or_ pleasure. In the moment of their pain, they might begin _habits_ that damaged them into the future, and old _habits_ of feeling could sometimes rear their heads in order to wreak havoc on a situation, but the original feelings themselves faded as inevitably as old leaves.

"What happens to Isobel?" I asked Alice.

"Well, it depends," Alice answered. "Isobel is stubborn and _would_ walk away from you if she thought you couldn't be trusted. That generally tracks with her best outcomes. She would find someone else - or, more likely, a number of 'someones' in slow but steady succession - the memory of you would fade, and every time a wistful 'what if' crept in there, she would have something to tell herself to fight it back down. If _you_ left _her_ , that would be worse. Generally speaking, she would have a hard time even pretending to settle down, even though she wouldn't want to pin her restlessness on her lingering feelings for you."

Alice told me her conclusions rather than showing me mostly for Emmett's sake, but she kept the worst back to share with me alone. When she had finished speaking, she continued in her thoughts, mentally offering up a handful of _other_ futures - truly bad futures in which Isobel ended up as an alcoholic, or depressed and suicidal, or in some other self-destructive place. _These were less likely,_ Alice thought, _usually needing some second trauma fairly soon after you leave her or she leaves you. But...they do show how trying to deal with your loss saps a lot of her resiliency. None of these futures really exist anymore since I decided to intervene with both of you, which argues that Isobel isn't very susceptible to those life choices without some kind of powerful motivating factor._

Oh good, I thought, it was great to know that I had the capacity to completely ruin any hope Isobel had for happiness.

But - then again, she might have said the same about her effect on me. Hadn't I walked into my plans for today fully aware that they might end in my death?

"So what does this mean?" I ground out. "She just decided to leave me."

"No," Alice told me, her voice colored with impatience, "she _didn't_. If you had been listening _to her_ instead of to everything you _feared_ she was saying, you would have heard her telling you exactly what you need to do to help her feel safe again."

Was that...true? I thought back to what Isobel had said. Maybe the _right now_ in her repeated "I can't deal with this right now" deserved emphasis?

"Edward," Alice continued, "you made a mistake. It's your bad luck that it happened to be a mistake that touches on some of Isobel's biggest fears and insecurities, but it was a _mistake_. You realized it was wrong, stopped, and then admitted to it and asked for forgiveness. Isobel isn't stupid. She'll realize that stuff is important once her initial feelings of outrage, fear and betrayal settle down a little."

"Will she?" I whispered, pleading with Alice silently not to jerk me around.

"Edward," Esme said, looking almost as desperately heartbroken as I felt, "she _will_. She's _meant_ for you."

"If she weren't," Alice said in a lighter tone, a smile lifting the corners of her mouth, "do you really think she would have gotten involved with you - with _us_? We're obviously trouble, even if Isobel only knows the parts of it that revolve around us as individuals and not around vampire _society_ \- if you can even call it 'society.' Like I said before: she isn't stupid - if she weren't meant to be with you, she would have taken one look at how weird we are and would never have looked at or spoken to any of us ever again."

"Especially after your show in Spanish class that first day," Emmett rumbled helpfully.

"Thanks," I told him wryly, rolling my eyes. I had managed to stop thinking about that terrible first meeting when I had almost killed the girl fated to become the love of my life. It did _wonders_ for my self-esteem to be reminded of it. I fixed my eyes on Alice again. "What do I do?"

" _Now_ he wants to use my powers," she muttered, making Jasper snort with laughter from his corner.

"Alice," Esme said, the warning in her tone clear.

"I _know_ ," Alice huffed before turning her attention to me. "Just do - or rather _don't_ do - exactly what she said. Leave her alone. Let her think. Let her _miss_ you. Tomorrow I'll apologize to her for my role in all this, but she'll forgive me fairly easily. Her insecurities are mostly about romantic relationships, I think, not friendships. After that - well, it depends on a lot of factors and it might take some time, but if you keep up your end, there's really no risk of her deciding to ditch you. It's not a decision she could make on a whim anyway."

I let out a slow breath and then nodded. "That sounds like something I can do," I told Alice. It would be hard, yes, but I had already faced up to dying. After that, everything else seemed a little less dire.

"Yes, you can," Alice agreed. "I've already seen it."


	38. Chapter 37

Note: Well, I meant to post this over the weekend, but my husband and I started seriously looking for a house...and then immediately found the one we wanted. Unfortunately it's a house that was foreclosed on during the recession and is now owned by the government, so they are really serious about the deadlines they give for everything. That means that, on top of school, I'm also going to sometimes be really busy with house things. Still, I'll do my best to update at least once a week.

* * *

XXXVII.

Thanks to my unplanned nap, I ended up sleeping badly all night and woke up late the next morning. In one sense, it was probably good: I knew I was doing everything a lot more slowly than usual and with a lot more sighing - well, except when a little burst of irritation hit and I found myself slamming a door or setting something down harder than necessary. If I had been awake at my usual time, Charlie would have been home and undoubtedly would have asked about my obvious bad mood. In spite of that piece of luck, that same bad mood made me disinclined to see good in anything - I was distinctively less like a sodium ion today than usual. It made me wonder, when sodium and chloride went their separate ways, if sodium ever took a couple of extra electrons from the chloride.

That was kind of how I felt.

My chemistry metaphor was breaking down, though, because I had absolutely no reason to think that our - thing - yesterday had somehow left Edward more positive. If I didn't want to change metaphors, I probably needed to find another explanation. Like Edward's confession had been water all over my incredibly reactive sodium, and now I was sodium hydroxide - more commonly known as lye.

That actually sounded about right, too - "caustic" probably described me pretty well at the moment.

I rubbed my eyes, which still felt gritty and sore from lack of sleep, crying, or both - probably both - and tried to decide just how badly I _didn't_ want to go to school today.

Not badly enough, I decided. I was blaming that lack of desire on Charlie being a police officer (he would be really upset if he found out I was skipping school) and not at all on the fact that, in spite of everything, I was maybe a little concerned about how Edward was taking things and wanted to catch a little glimpse of him.

Because I didn't. That would be stupid, right?

I managed to leave the house in good time - thank God for having my first two periods free - and drove to school carefully, trying not to let myself think about anything upsetting. Such as: now that I didn't want him to, I half expected Edward to be waiting for me. He seemed perverse like that.

 _He_ wasn't waiting, though. Instead, it was Alice.

She met me as I got down from Simone's cab and immediately shoved a piece of notebook paper at me.

"What's this?" I asked, wondering if she might be carrying messages for Edward.

"Notes for trig today," she said. For a moment I didn't understand, until I remembered that she was a psychic and could presumably get those kinds of things before they happened. "I looked ahead to the lecture and took them during biology," she confirmed. "We're going to skip so that we can talk."

"Are we?" I asked, a little put off by the fact that she wasn't actually soliciting my opinion on the matter. Then I bit my lip, realizing that maybe she needed to talk to me. "Are you angry at me?"

"Are _you_ angry at _me_?" she returned, but continued before I had a chance to answer. "Look, it's damp and cold, so let's get in your truck and _then_ we can talk about who is or isn't angry and why."

That sounded like a sensible plan, so we put it into action and a moment later were seated side by side on Simone's bench seat.

"I have to apologize," Alice began immediately. "Some of the times Edward followed you, it was encouraged or instigated by me. It didn't occur to me to wonder if it might bother you. I'm used to thinking like a vampire, not like a human. All I saw was that separating a vampire from his or her mate is painful, and I didn't like seeing Edward in pain."

There were so many things I could say in response to her apology, but her foundational assumption seemed like the place to start. We could tackle everything that grew out of it afterward. "Alice," I sighed, suddenly wishing even more that I had gotten a full night of sleep, "I don't believe in this whole 'mate' thing. Love and relationships are a _choice_ , they don't just fall on you and trap you out of the blue. You don't get romantic bliss by _accident_."

"No, you don't get bliss - or even happiness - by accident," Alice agreed. "You get it through doing the work of balancing your own desires and needs with someone else's. That's as true for us as it is for you."

It seemed like every time I ended up debating this mate thing with a vampire, I got the same kind of annoying it's-the-same-but-different answer. If everything except the love-at-first-sight thing worked the same way, then I was calling bullshit on the entire claim. "Then what's the _point_ of having a mate?" I demanded. "Why do you keep insisting that it's true?"

"The point?" she repeated. "I don't know. What's the point of _existing_?"

"That's not what I mean," I told her impatiently. "I'm not trying to have a debate about metaphysics. I'm just saying: if having a mate isn't any different from a regular relationship, why define it differently?"

"It _is_ different," she insisted. " _Human_ romantic relationships can be about happiness _if you want them to be_. Vampire relationships are about fundamental needs first and foremost. A lot of vampire couples _don't_ like each other, you know, because being mated means _never being able to walk away_ , no matter _how_ cruel you are to each other."

I felt my brows draw together. "Okay, for the sake of argument: if you can't walk away, and you love each other, why would you be cruel to each other?"

She shrugged. "You _have_ to have known people who just couldn't seem to help themselves because they were self-centered or immature or just didn't know any other way to express their feelings. It's not like becoming a vampire clears _any_ of that up. If anything, it might make it worse. How do you deal with, say, a life-changing childhood trauma that you can't actually remember anymore? Especially when all practicing psychologists are human and food? You've already surmised that becoming a vampire makes individuals care less about humans - typically, at least. So it generally doesn't make us _more_ empathetic."

I spent a long moment chewing on my lip, thinking over what she had said.

"It doesn't matter whether a relationship was fated to be or not," she went on when the silence began to stretch out. "There's still plenty of work, compromise and sometimes some self-sacrifice involved. If both people involved are eager and willing to pursue those things, it will be a happy relationship. If they aren't, it won't be. That's as true for us as it is for humans - we just don't get the option of divorce."

"You're not really selling me on this," I told her.

She shrugged again and looked away. "I hope you care enough about Edward to take his situation into account."

Well - maybe I did, even if I wasn't sure that I wanted to. I sighed. "What, exactly, are you apologizing for?" I asked, changing the subject. Later, I would turn over what she had just told me and decide if I found it credible or not. For now, I couldn't come up with any immediate objections, so we might as well move on to the next thing.

"Um, well…" She pulled her legs up and wrapped her arms around them, suddenly looking unexpectedly young and vulnerable. "When Edward first started spending nights at your house, I sort of...thought he should be in your room. With you. Instead of, you know, keeping a figurative eye on you from a distance."

"I'm glad he didn't do that," I said.

"Yeah…" Alice sighed. "I was wrong, and he had things a lot more right than I did."

I bit my lip, but couldn't stop the next question from spilling out. "Did you tell him to follow me on my date?" I asked.

"No," she answered quickly. "But it didn't occur to me to stop him. I checked to make sure he wasn't going to kill Tyler, because that was what I was most worried about. Thankfully that was _super_ unlikely. While I was checking, though, I did see that Edward's concern was massively unwarranted - Tyler, while selfish and immature, is way too much of a coward to ever stand up to you - and I didn't bother to tell him."

She paused and took a deep breath while I tried to decide what I thought about her actions - and lack of action. "I talked Edward into following you to Port Angeles on Saturday."

I blinked. "Oh," I said. "You know…" I began, and then cut myself off, shaking my head. "This is going to sound really stupid, but I never really realized that you going to Port Angeles and saving me like that constituted _following_."

"Well," Alice said, "maybe 'following' is too strong a term. We weren't watching your every movement - things wouldn't have been so close if we had been. Both of us were just checking in every so often, maybe about once an hour."

"I see," I mumbled, scrubbing my face with my hands. "Still...I…" Was I being a hypocrite? I _still_ didn't feel nearly as outraged over the Port Angeles thing as I had over Edward following me on my date. Was it because it had been a date? Because, in Port Angeles, I really _had_ been in danger? Because Edward had had reason to think I was in danger based on Alice's visions? Or was it more fundamentally unfair than that?

Was I more angry over one...because it had been _Edward_ rather than Edward _and Alice_?

And if I _was_ that unfair, what did I intend to do about it?

I couldn't answer that last question fully just yet, but maybe I could make a start by trying to be _more_ fair. I had known even while I was saying some of the things I'd said the afternoon before that I would probably want to take them back. Maybe that was the right place to start.

But...I wasn't ready to actually talk to Edward yet. Maybe I could make a shitty compromise? But what would Alice think of it? And did she already know I hadn't heeded her warning as thoroughly as I might have? It seemed like she knew a lot about what had happened, but did she know my _intentions_? Oh well, I needed her input, so I would have to deal with the awkwardness of talking to her about this. "Um," I began, my face immediately heating, "do you think - I mean, I, uh, I said some things yesterday...I mean, I _tried_ to follow your advice, but I still said a couple of things I didn't really mean. Do you think...do you think Edward would mind if I apologized over text?" I hurried on before Alice could actually answer. "I know it's a really cowardly way to do it and I _do_ want to apologize for real. I just...I'm not ready to talk yet - I still have so much to think about - and - but - I don't want to, you know, _leave_ it. That doesn't seem fair, either."

Alice looked like she was trying _really_ hard not to laugh at me when I finally managed to meet her gaze again. "I think he'd really appreciate a texted apology, especially if he knew a real one was coming later." A little smile broke out on her face. "I guess if there's a later, though, that means you're going to forgive him."

I ducked my head, feeling my blush deepen. "Pretty sure you already knew that," I muttered.

"I didn't know that _you_ knew it," she replied.

"Well…" I thought back to the day before. "I think I sort of did even when I was absolutely furious with him - "

"What are you now?" Alice interrupted.

I wrapped my arms around myself and tried to decide. "Hurt, mostly," I told her slowly. Yes, sometimes I was still a little angry - but that was probably just a cover for more hurt. "I'm not quite sure why anymore, though. I mean - there's more than one reason. There's the obvious - what he shared with me - but there's also…" I took a deep breath, "Alice, you should have seen him. He didn't even _try_ to defend himself or calm me down. Didn't promise he wouldn't do it anymore. Didn't ask if I could ever forgive him." My eyes filled with tears again. "He just _gave up_."

"Yeah…" she sighed. "I did try to warn you that he's like that."

"You didn't warn me well enough," I told her, my voice breaking a little on the last word. Wiping my eyes hurriedly took care of the tears, and a couple of deep breaths calmed me down a little. "Sorry," I told her. "It's not your fault. I don't even know why it's so upsetting. That's...one of the things I'd like to figure out. One of the things I _know_ I'd like to figure out - most of the rest I can't even articulate yet."

"Through all of this, I've mostly been thinking like Edward's sister," Alice told me, "but right now, when I say this, I'm speaking as your friend: you've absorbed _a lot_ over the last few days. It's completely reasonable to need a little time to take it all in and decide what you think."

I shivered and wrapped my arms more tightly around my body. Alice made it sound - I wasn't sure. Whatever it was, it made me feel vaguely ashamed of myself, even though I couldn't seem to pin it down further than that.

I shook my head - might as well add it to the pile of things I had yet to pin down. Maybe it would work itself out as I got my feelings organized everywhere else.

"Thanks," I told her out loud, trying not to make it sound clipped or curt. I appreciated the sentiment - probably - even if the actual words were doing weird things to me.

We fell silent as, in spite of my resolution to come back to it later, I tried to work out what I didn't like about what she'd said. I didn't get very far, though, and was glad enough for the distraction when Alice said, "You're really concerned about your privacy. Why is that?"

"Am I?" I asked, feeling my eyes widen a little. Didn't everyone worry about their privacy?

"Isobel, you had a panic attack. What Edward did was wrong from a human perspective, but a little yelling would have been a lot more reasonable than a panic attack. You were really adamant from the first time you learned what we are that he wasn't going to hurt you, so I don't really understand your reaction. I mean, _are_ you afraid of Edward?"

I found myself shaking my head before my mind had even fully processed the question. But was it the truth? "Not...physically," I qualified.

"Emotionally?" she asked.

I found myself digging my fingers into my ribs until both ached. "I...maybe? I...keep feeling like he's getting ready to abandon...I mean, to...leave. Me. And maybe town."

"Fair," Alice murmured. "But, look, the reason _stalking_ is a problem is because it's meant to intimidate the person being stalked. Do you think Edward was trying to intimidate you? To corner you? To force you to behave...the...way..."

She trailed off as I felt myself go cold, my chest tightening at the same time.

"Whoa, you just went about three shades paler," she told me. "Are you okay?"

I swallowed a couple of times, not quite trusting my voice, and, at the same time, not quite sure how to answer.

"Here," Alice said before I could decide, sitting up and putting her feet on Simone's floor, "put your head here." She patted her leg. "You look a little sick."

I nodded and stretched out, my stomach slowly settling as my chest relaxed.

"Okay," Alice breathed, biting her lip as she looked down at me, "what was _that_?"

I sighed, trying to make it into a laugh and failing completely. "Why don't you look into the future to find out what I tell you so that you can tell me in the present?" I suggested.

She snorted. "That's not the way it works. If you don't do the work of analyzing yourself, you'll never be able to tell me what you figure out."

Well...okay. It had been a long shot anyway. I spent a moment chewing on my lip and trying to sort out what I was feeling. "I guess," I decided at last, "that it keeps coming back to this: I _trusted_ him, and now I'm not sure that I was right to. I'm also not sure I _wasn't_ right to," I hastened to add, "but the doubt is...difficult."

"But trusted him with _what_?" Alice asked. "We've already established that you aren't overly concerned about your physical safety around him, and whether he followed you or not has nothing to do with how committed he is or isn't to sticking around."

That was...a good question. "I don't know," I admitted. What _had_ I given Edward that required trust? I had kissed him, yes, but I had also kissed Tyler. Kisses didn't necessarily mean anything. Except - kissing Edward _had_ meant something, and it _hadn't_ meant anything with Tyler. What was the difference?

The difference was that I trusted - _had_ trusted - still maybe trusted? - Edward, and hadn't ever really trusted Tyler.

But that was circular, so it didn't make any sense.

Somehow I was attacking this from the wrong angle. What was the most fundamental difference between my experiences with Edward and with Tyler? Well...I supposed I felt differently about them. I really liked Edward - I _knew_ I really liked him - while Tyler had mostly been an interesting experiment.

So...I had trusted Edward with...liking?

No, I realized, not quite - I was only halfway there. I suddenly remembered the moment in the nurse's office when he had turned his charm on Mrs. Cope, and I had understood that he had power over me - or had the _potential_ to have power over me - and that it scared me. _That_ was what I had trusted Edward with - my liking made me vulnerable to him, to his influence.

But wasn't I influenced by everyone I cared about? I spent another moment chewing on my lip and reflecting on my friendships and relationships with my parents. My reluctant conclusion was that I really wasn't. I was influenced by _my own feelings_ for them, but _their_ feelings didn't change anything I had already decided on.

Ugh, that made me sound completely unreasonable, and that wasn't it - at least I didn't think it was. I usually responded pretty well to reason. That was the problem. I _always_ demanded evidence. The idea of letting someone influence me _emotionally_ made me feel -

Well...sick.

It was worse because no one else I knew was as charmingly persuasive as Edward. Worse than merely _influencing_ how I felt, I feared he could _overwrite_ my feelings practically on a whim.

I realized my arms were wrapped around my torso again, my fingers digging into my sides. "Alice," I asked, my voice low and a little breathless, "what's the difference between influence and manipulation?"

She tilted her head, examining me speculatively, and I wished that I didn't have my head in her lap, because there was no good way to hide my face. "I guess it depends on how broadly you're defining 'manipulation,'" she answered. "At its broadest, _all_ interactions between people might be called manipulation. But - if you're using it strictly in the pejorative sense, I suppose it has to do with the motives driving the person doing the influencing."

I nodded slowly. "How...do you know that someone's motives are good?"

She combed her fingers through my hair gently in a gesture that was obviously meant to be soothing. "Observation can help," she told me quietly, "but I suppose, in the end, it comes down to trust."

I nodded again and squeezed my eyes closed, willing myself not to start crying.

"Isobel," Alice said, "I know this isn't easy, but it is good. You need to work this stuff out. Keep an eye on Edward and remember that he didn't _have_ to tell you about what he did. In fact, if he had wanted to manipulate you, he wouldn't have. He really believed that you would never forgive him, and he owned up to it anyway. Keep it in mind."

"That's true," I allowed. It seemed a little silly to be angry at him both because he might be _too_ attached to me - attached enough to stalk me - _and_ because I thought he might just give up and take off. Although - maybe the two things weren't _so_ different. Both shared a disregard for my feelings on the matter.

Still, he was no longer disregarding my feelings about the stalking thing. Alice had a point there.

I covered my eyes with my forearm. "This is such a headache," I groaned. Literally - I was getting an actual headache. "Was it this hard for you and Jasper?"

"No," Alice answered. "I started seeing him in my visions months before we actually met, so, in a sense, I already knew him. And he's an empath, so he never doubted me or my feelings."

I uncovered my eyes so that I could look at her. "He's an empath? Can he tell what I'm feeling? Or is it the same for him as it is for Edward with his mind-reading thing?"

"I don't know," she answered. "He probably can tell, but he hasn't specifically tried. He can also influence - in a limited way - the way people feel. And," she added quickly, rolling her eyes, before I could say anything, "I already know what you probably think about that. Don't worry - it's temporary and it only really works one direction. He can calm people down, but not just make them feel whatever he wants."

"Huh," I said, glad that I didn't need to tell her how disturbed I would be to find someone controlling my emotions. "Do you know why it's unidirectional?"

"Well, Jasper is generally a fairly calm person. Even when he feels something is absolutely necessary, he isn't really _passionate_ about it - just incredibly resolved." She shrugged. "I think that has something to do with it."

I found a smile pulling at my mouth for what might have been the first time all morning. "That probably makes him a good match for you."

"It really does," Alice agreed, flashing me an adorably gleeful grin.

We heard the bell for the end of third period buzz through the school, and my smile faded. Next up was gym.

"Don't ask if you can sit out," Alice told me abruptly, cutting off the thought that was just barely beginning to form in my mind. She gave me an apologetic smile. "Edward will worry. Besides," she added, "exercise helps humans think, so you should do your aerobics and think."

I didn't really _want_ to take her advice, but I did anyway - especially since she was nice enough to continue acting as a buffer between me and Jessica's curiosity, the same as she had yesterday. When lunch came, I knew I would have to face up to the Jessica Inquisition - it would be pretty obvious that Edward wasn't sitting with us - but by then maybe I could have some kind of (untrue) answer ready.

Figuring out whether Alice was right about humans, exercise, and thinking would have required research I didn't have time to do, but I decided I might as well test it out. Even if I ended up on the receiving end of a placebo effect, that implied I was thinking better than I would otherwise, and I was all for anything that might help - even things that shouldn't. There were two mental tasks I needed to accomplish during the course of the period: first, I needed a plausible lie for Jessica and everyone else about the sudden coolness between Edward and me. Second, I needed to see how closely Edward was following my demands from the day before - not because I was going to be angry if I caught him looking at me, but rather because I wanted to know if I needed to apologize for that _particular_ demand. If he realized it was ridiculous and disregarded it, I would put off my apology. If not, I needed to set him straight and also apologize for making it in the first place.

It _was_ ridiculous.

I was already set up with my mat by the time Edward came into the gym. Though I hadn't specifically been watching for him - or had been trying not to - I still spotted him as soon as he walked through the door, my heart contracting painfully in response to his presence, however distant.

His face and body language weren't as miserable as they had been the afternoon before. Instead his expression was solemn and a little thoughtful.

He didn't look my direction, though. At all. Even a little bit.

That was probably question two answered, I thought with a sigh. Trust Edward to be a perfectionist completely regardless of any and all circumstances. It was a really good thing that Alice had warned me not to say anything I didn't mean. Knowing I couldn't fully express my feelings might have contributed to the panic attack, but a panic attack was a small price to pay for Edward not ending up irrevocably convinced that I hated him forever.

I could see now that he would have, too. If we were going to make this work, I was going to have to find ways to express myself more calmly - preferably ways that didn't increase my anxiety - and he was going to have to learn when to take me seriously and when my feelings were just an initial reaction to something that would calm given a little time. It was the kind of thing we were probably going to need to meet in the middle on, because I was naturally expressive.

Blame that one on my mother.

With question two taken care of, I was free to spend the rest of the period considering question one. While I didn't feel like I owed the Jessica Inquisition any explanations, I wasn't opposed to taking the path of least resistance via strategic lies, and an explanation would make my life and friendship with Jess easier. Besides that, I wanted to be able to talk to Angela about...well, anything I felt the need to talk about. That meant that my lie needed to be both plausible and reflect a certain degree of reality, so that my feelings would make sense to Angela when I told her about them.

I could just tell them Edward had been stalking me - leaving out all the supernatural parts - but stalking was truly scary without the mitigating vampire factors that both Edward and Alice had presented to me. Lacking those, the truth amounted to a larger misrepresentation than coming up with some other crime, even one that wasn't as close to factually accurate.

After a considerable amount of thought, I decided to move the stalking to the realm of the internet. Cyberstalking, while still a little bit gross, wasn't the kind of immediate bodily threat that conventional stalking tended to come off as. For the one big violation of privacy, when Edward had followed me on my date, I would substitute him finding and reading things I had posted online under supposedly anonymous usernames. I thought that represented the severity of the situation fairly well and explained my anger without making him look irredeemably obsessed. (Though, if he and Alice were right, he kind of was - but that was between the two of us and I wasn't exactly angry about it. More like really concerned - and that concern extended both to him _and_ to myself.)

That answered my first two questions. Combined with some of the revelations I'd had during my conversation with Alice, it felt like a start. There was still so much more to consider. Like - it was obvious now that I was really, really scared of being manipulated, but _why_? It wasn't like I'd ever been in an abusive relationship. My relationships with both my parents were pretty good and, even if my mom hadn't had a great track record before she met Phil, she had always been careful to protect me from her relationship problems. Charlie, meanwhile, hadn't had anything to either model for me _or_ protect me from.

So...yeah. I wasn't quite sure where that had come from, and not knowing might be a problem. Sometimes getting to the bottom of an issue was the only way to fix it - sort of like needing the ends of a cord before you could untie a knot - and I desperately wanted this one fixed.

Ahhh, where was the sword of Alexander when I needed it?


	39. Chapter 38

XXXVIII.

After Tuesday afternoon, it was eight days until Isobel spoke to me again.

Most of Monday night I spent closeted away with Alice, sifting through her visions of the future in an effort to gain a better understanding of Isobel - who, though she was my mate, was only just beginning to make any kind of sense to me. It felt, in retrospect, like everything between us had gotten started on a series of false premises. Mistakes had been made on both sides - but perhaps more especially on my side. Beyond following Isobel and intruding on her privacy, I had been fighting to leave her from the very first, convinced that she would be better off without me since humans, after all, did not have mates.

That one assumption had led me completely astray. I had spent my time wrestling with myself and plotting my retreat when I should have been trying to better understand Isobel's needs and desires - and fears. Had I understood from the first that I was, regardless of either of our wishes, as vital to her as she was to me, I would never have monitored her house, would never have passively let her plan her date with Tyler, and certainly would never have followed her on that date.

I would have asked her to go somewhere with me instead. In hindsight, it was clear to me that she would have been frightened by how much she preferred a date with me to one with Tyler, and she might have said no, but that would have told me a great deal about the faultlines in the confident front she generally put up. It would have taught me a little caution in how I engaged with her. She might have _willingly_ turned to me for help and comfort after her date, she might have opened up to me about how it made her feel, and, had I been paying attention, I might have built up my understanding of how her mind worked bit by bit.

We might have discovered and disarmed her fears _together_.

Instead, I had done precisely the thing most calculated to frighten her and put her on her guard.

A week ago - two _days_ ago - realizing I had failed so badly would have prompted me to start planning my withdrawal again, but wallowing in self-loathing was no longer an option. If I left - Isobel would never recover, not entirely. That wasn't something I could be responsible for doing to her, and so feelings of guilt and inadequacy had to be put aside. _Not_ putting them aside would be unconscionably selfish.

Of course, pursuing her outright at this moment would _also_ be selfish, and so the only option I had left was to remain within reach but withdrawn, asking for nothing but allowing her to approach me in her own time.

I thought Tuesday would be the most difficult. Memories of our disastrous Monday afternoon conversation were fresh in my mind, and I wasn't precisely eager to add additional cold or angry looks from her to my already often unpleasant reflections.

It did not turn out at all as I had expected, though.

The first surprise came when the looks she cast my way could not be described as either "cold" or "angry." I watched her watching me through the minds of those she didn't regularly talk to, thereby sidestepping her list of ways I was to leave her alone. Her expression was, instead of angry, about equal parts unhappy and resolved - two emotions that, while not guaranteeing any good news for me, could at least be interpreted more broadly. And I still had Alice's visions to reassure me that my fears were just that - mine, and not a reflection of reality.

Alice's visions were still tending strongly in my favor, and she added to them the observation that Isobel hadn't demanded from _either_ of us that Alice keep their conversations to herself. I would have been tempted to call it an oversight, but Alice was convinced that Isobel, on some level, was aware that I needed _some_ kind of connection to her and had, consciously or not, left our mutual connection to my sister open as a loophole. Alice wasn't willing to remember everything they had talked about for me during school - she thought I might be tempted to act on some of it, which might have been true - but promised to give me a nightly update.

Perhaps I should have argued with her more, but - I didn't want to. Listening to conversations between Alice and Isobel with Alice's permission was playing fair even by her own rules. As she had told me, there were at least _two_ participants in any conversation, and the wishes of _both_ mattered. If Isobel wanted to be sure something wouldn't get back to me, she could simply not tell Alice.

Alice had a similarly meticulously-plotted arrangement set up for lunch. Though I kept my mind carefully focused on our habitual table - where I was once again sitting - Jasper was shamelessly eavesdropping on the conversation going on at the table where Isobel and Alice sat together with Isobel's friends. He broadcast every detail as loudly as he could my direction, giving me a front-row seat for all of it, right down to the expressions of all the faces he could see and all the emotions he could sense - which, interestingly, included Isobel's.

Knowing that this _wasn't_ playing fair, I asked him to stop, but he was much more inclined to do as Alice ordered than he was to respond to my wishes, and he had an answer ready from Alice: " _It's a public conversation, one that I'm privy to and am allowed to tell you about anyway,_ and _Jessica is going to be telling everyone who will listen this afternoon, so you couldn't avoid hearing about it if you tried. I'm just trying to make sure you get the_ truth _and not the incomplete version Jessica will spread around. Deal with it."_

I sighed at Jasper, but didn't protest further. There was no denying that I was curious to hear what Isobel would tell people about me and about us. I wouldn't put it past her to simply refuse to answer any questions at all, but I couldn't quite see how that would give Jessica enough fodder for an "incomplete version" of anything.

It was hard to say what other options existed. She couldn't really tell the truth because there was too much about vampires, and I knew there was no chance she would ever let something about that slip. I could only suppose that she would make something up, perhaps with help from Alice. The question was how fair she would be. Would I be painted as the villain, or would she present details analogous to those that really did - at least to a degree - mitigate my guilt?

I hoped it would be the latter, and I went on hoping it right up until the moment she told her friends I had stalked her online.

That was undoubtedly low the point of my Tuesday.

To be fair, my worst fears weren't realized. She wasn't painting me as a villain and was obviously trying to strike a balance between her own discomfort with my actions and my relatively pure - if misguided - motives in taking them.

Even so, I had two reasons to be uncomfortable with her precise choice of lie. The first was that it was too near the truth. Humans often worked off the premise that a good lie was liberally salted with truth, but they remembered imperfectly and too often became tangled in their own lies if those lies were not based in reality. Vampires had no such problems - our perfect recall made it easier to remember precisely what we had said and to whom. In addition, the human bias toward truth-in-lies made them likely to begin any investigation by combing the lies told for grains of truth. Better, when one was a blood-sucking monster, not to offer any such leads.

Of course, Isobel was a novice in lying and didn't seem to have much natural talent for it, so, as little as I liked her near-truth, it was understandable. I trusted, as well, that Alice would have interfered had she seen anything dangerous coming of it.

That still didn't make it _comfortable_.

My second reason for discomfort was more personal. I disliked the word "stalk." Not for any human reasons - Isobel had a right to her feelings and, moreover, I knew such feelings were honed by millions of years of social instinct. She could no more reason away her instincts than I could reason away mine. Besides, in quite literally _any_ other situation, her interpretation of my actions as threatening would have been precisely correct. I vastly preferred that she overreact to me than that she _under_ react to anyone truly dangerous.

I disliked the word "stalk" because it was the preferred term for vampires hunting human prey. The thought of Isobel as prey was agonizing. It reminded sometimes, of course, that she had once been prey _to me_ , and that was bad enough. But knowing that she could easily become prey for _any other vampire in the world_ made me feel that I would happily set _all_ of us aflame just to avoid that eventuality.

It wasn't, obviously, anything I could talk to my siblings about. Minus Rosalie, they would see it as another argument in favor of turning Isobel. Rose, meanwhile, would consider it more evidence that I was _doomed_ to turn her. It wasn't a conversation I had any chance of leaving in a better mood than I had gone in with, so I saw no reason to have it at all.

My initial impulse was to bury my hands in my hair as I tried to deal with my consternation in the face of Isobel's choice of lie. I stopped myself, though, aware that if I showed that much of a reaction, Isobel might put two numbers together and come up with the correct answer. Even though _the correct answer_ included the fact that this whole thing was Alice's plan and execution, I found I couldn't bear the chance that my one precious loophole might close.

That was a blow - discovering how deeply my feelings ran only when I found I couldn't bear to lose something I would face the possibility of losing every day until Isobel and I reconciled. But then a voice from the table across the room thoroughly distracted me.

" _Isobel, I don't think that's fair."_

It was pure luck that I turned my eyes to stare at Jasper and _didn't_ turn around to look at the member of Isobel's table who had spoken. I was too shocked to have the presence of mind to avoid, now, such an obvious signal that I was listening in. The voice wasn't Alice's - it was quieter, gentler, and, even though Angela's back was to us and Jasper couldn't see her face, we both watched her ears redden as she undoubtedly realized that the attention of the entire table was centered on her. Even Isobel looked surprised. Only Alice looked absolutely delighted, and the gratitude that Jasper felt radiating from her was so powerful that I nearly believed it was visible.

" _It's not fair?"_ Isobel said, repeating Angela's words as her eyes widened. " _Why - what's not fair about it?"_

" _Well,"_ Angela said, swallowing audibly, " _I guess that...what you're describing doesn't sound like cyberstalking. That has a legal definition that includes the motives of the person committing the crime, and also has to involve harassment of some sort."_

Isobel's brows furrowed and she bit her lip. " _We don't always have to use the legal definitions for things. Sometimes the legal definition is just_ different _than the colloquial one."_

" _I suppose,"_ Angela replied softly, " _but 'stalking' just seems so_ loaded _. It implies something threatening, you know? And it sounds like Edward just wanted to know more about you. Even if he_ did _go about it in an underhanded way - even a_ creepy _way - he hasn't used it to threaten you, right?"_ She abruptly leaned forward. " _He_ hasn't _, right?"_

" _Of course not,"_ Isobel said dismissively. Then her teeth returned to worry her lower lip. " _I don't know what else to call it,"_ she told Angela, her voice a little defensive. " _Can you think of a better term?"_

" _Who needs another term?"_ Mike demanded. " _It was stalking, plain and simple."_

Isobel gave him a sour look as Jessica laughed nervously. " _I think Angela is right,"_ she chimed in, her eyes fixed on Mike, " _I mean, who would even_ mind _being stalked by Edward Cullen. I know I wouldn't."_

" _I would,"_ Isobel replied shortly, turning her hard gaze from Mike to Jessica.

" _That's not the point, Jess,"_ Angela murmured, tapping away at her phone. " _There really_ isn't _a good but less loaded synonym,"_ she sighed. " _I guess if it were real life, I would say he was following you around without your knowledge or permission, although - I don't know, maybe that would be worse than following you around online? It does seem a_ little _threatening. This - what you just told us - doesn't, though, which makes it deserve the term 'stalking' even_ less _."_

" _Maybe you should let your dad decide that,"_ Mike muttered.

Isobel's chin went up an inch. " _I don't intend to keep it from him."_

" _And do you really want to use the term 'stalking' when you tell him?"_ Angela asked her gently. " _It_ is _a crime, and if he thinks you feel threatened…"_

That seemed to pull Isobel up short. She bit her lip again and her hands clenched into fists. " _No,"_ she agreed slowly. " _You're right. Oh God. I can't picture saying that to him at_ all _. He would be...I mean, telling him what happened is one thing. Labelling it like that is_ completely different _. It's...it's not just not_ fair _,"_ Jasper felt her stomach drop and relayed the feeling to me, " _it's..._ wrong _."_ Her face fell to her hands, mirroring the sensation in her stomach a moment before. " _Oh my God, I've been calling it that this whole time._ To. Edward's. Face." She raised her head again, her eyes darting to my back before fixing a little desperately on Alice.

" _So apologize,"_ Alice murmured.

" _I don't like it,"_ Mike growled. " _He's dangerous."_

" _You don't have to like it,"_ Isobel snapped at him. " _It has nothing to do with you."_ I wondered if she was defending me or her own privacy.

" _Edward is a little intimidating, but this doesn't come off as dangerous,"_ Angela said, mostly to Mike, her tone almost insultingly patient. " _More like totally infatuated."_ Her voice changed, and this time I could hear the smile in it. " _Maybe you're his first girlfriend,"_ she told Isobel, causing her to blush - though it was more pained than pleased.

" _There's no way,"_ Jessica scoffed.

" _Actually, there_ is _a way,"_ Alice sniffed, " _because Angela is right."_

" _I can't text this,"_ Isobel muttered, a reference to something I didn't understand.

" _You'll survive talking to him,"_ Alice replied, rolling her eyes. " _Promise."_

Isobel didn't respond, instead pointing her finger at Jessica. " _Don't you dare go around telling anyone that Edward stalked me. You can use any other words you want, just_ not that _. That goes for the rest of you, too,"_ she added, glancing around the table to include June - who hadn't talked much at all during the period - and Mike in her demand. Especially Mike - her gaze lingered on him and, at that moment, she looked more than a little dangerous herself.

Jessica was smug rather than insulted. " _Of course I won't tell anyone he stalked you,"_ she purred.

" _Don't tell go around telling people that Isobel_ said _he stalked her before changing her mind, either,"_ Alice admonished, shaking her finger at Jessica.

Jessica's mouth dropped open comically. " _Alright,"_ she agreed more grudgingly, casting a suspicious look at Alice.

" _It would really hurt me if people started saying stuff like that about Edward, especially knowing it was all my fault - because I was being thoughtless and...and cruel,"_ Isobel told her, her shoulders hunching forward unhappily.

Jessica's face softened. " _Okay."_

As though I cared what other humans said about me - for _any_ reason. I supposed it did matter - a little - if something like that got back to Charlie Swan, but if Isobel intended to give him her own version of what happened, he didn't seem like the sort to be swayed by malicious gossip. He might not be pleased with me, but I suspected he would allow himself to be guided by Isobel's feelings, which appeared to be softening rapidly.

Even so - I was glad that Isobel was thinking of me and trying to defend whatever reputation I might have that was worth retaining. The label ultimately didn't matter much, unpleasant personal associations or not - her defense meant a great deal more.

Isobel fell silent after that and Alice struck up a conversation with everyone else about the dance, summer plans - really anything that might distract them from their earlier conversation and Isobel's abstraction. After a moment, Jasper returned his attention to me, deciding that the important part was largely finished. _What do you think?_ he asked.

"I think I know why Alice wanted me to hear that," I murmured too low and fast for human ears. I thought other things, too, but they weren't things he needed to know: I thought that I was glad Alice had intervened on Monday before I had done anything rash. I thought that Isobel seemed confused by her own feelings and uncertain about her judgments. And I thought that she wasn't accustomed to that uncertainty - she seemed off-balance to me, and I wished I could do whatever the emotional equivalent was of offering her my hand until she regained her stability.

Jasper spent a moment sampling Isobel's emotional state. _She feels terrible - I think she wonders if she's ruined everything. It feels sick like that._

I knew that feeling entirely too well - it was exactly the way I had felt leaving her house the day before.

Well, there wasn't anything I could do about it - it was up to her to approach me, and even then...nothing she had said to me last week or yesterday during lunch had been enough to break me out of my self-absorbed guilt. That had taken insight from Alice and, surprisingly, Emmett, as well as the help of the rest of the family. There was no particular reason to think Isobel any less stubborn than I was. Thankfully, Isobel also had Alice in her corner, and I fully repented of my previous dismissal of Angela as a typically dull human. I knew, too, how much Charlie adored her, and I trusted that he would do his best to see her happy again. Maybe even her mother would come through for her.

I went to biology feeling a little bit comforted by my lunchtime observations, though I had to spend the period and the walk to Spanish listening to Angela fretting over whether she should confront me about Isobel. She was a little worried that I actually _had_ threatened her friend, and, even if not, at least wanted to inform me how incredibly misguided my actions had been. Fortunately - or maybe unfortunately, since I wouldn't have had to listen to her thoughts about it if she had just gone ahead and gotten it over with - she wasn't quite brave enough to face me down alone.

Either way - it wasn't as though she had any new information for me. I knew the precise degree to which I had made a mess of everything and regretted it as much as even the most devoted friend could wish for.

Isobel was nearly late to Spanish, coming in the door just as the bell for the start of class began ringing. I half suspected that she had been waiting outside the door for it to ring - the timing seemed a little suspicious - but, in any case, she scurried to her place beside Angela without looking at anyone, including me. Emmett kept an eye on her for me throughout the period without my needing to ask, and she didn't even pretend to take notes, just spent her time staring mostly unblinking at the bare desk in front of her.

I wondered how long a human could refrain from blinking without damaging her eyes, because she _really_ was not blinking very often.

It was no surprise when Isobel was the first one out the door after class, and somehow even less of a surprise when I found her waiting for me just outside the classroom. She indicated I should follow with a jerk of her head and then led me around the side of the building.

My guess was that, since she had initiated contact, I was allowed to look at her - and so I did, taking pleasure in the chance to watch her with my _own_ eyes rather than through someone else's.

I stood quietly, waiting, as she fidgeted nervously, playing with the zipper on her coat, shoving her hands in her pockets, taking them out again, wrapping her arms around herself, her fists clenched in tense little balls - I finally spoke when she opened her fists and dug her fingers into her sides instead, her nails going white with the pressure.

"You want to apologize," I observed.

She gave a short, sharp nod, her eyes fixed on the ground. "I didn't mean it when I told you not to look at me," she said in a rush. "And I never should have accused you of lying about not being able to hear my thoughts. And I'm sorry for every single time I said anything about," she drew in a shaky breath, "stalking because I know that what you did wasn't really stalking and I never, ever should have said that, and I'm so, so sorry, and - "

"Isobel," I interrupted, but she didn't look at me. Her fingers just dug harder into her sides and I knew that she was staring at the ground partly because she didn't want me to see that her eyes were full of tears. I could see the glint of water between her lashes, though, and every time she blinked, a little moisture stuck to them, clumping the fine hairs together.

Well, it didn't matter whether she looked at me or not. "I don't care about the label," I told her. "The simple truth is that I did something that scared you and shook your trust in me, and you can call it anything you want." The other simple truth was that I had avoided finding out how to present it in a way she could work with emotionally, because I was a thoughtless, selfish, self-absorbed idiot. I had nearly sacrificed not only _my_ happiness, but also _Isobel's_ , simply _on principle_. Maybe Rosalie wasn't the one most deserving of the "pretentious bitch" title - I wasn't wearing a facade. I really was this conceited.

Isobel's chest spasmed and I heard her swallow. "My feelings were stupid," she told me breathlessly. "I had no right to feel that way."

 _Since when do feelings need a_ right _to exist?_ I wanted to ask, but I suspected from my own struggles with guilt and self-loathing that it wouldn't do any good. "Do you want to do something to make it up to me?" I asked instead.

She hesitated, and then gave a quick, decisive nod.

"Alright," I said, and then spent a moment thinking it over. Did I really want to say what I was about to say? Well...no, but Alice would approve and it was probably for the best. "Two things," I told her, getting another little nod. "First, stick with your original plan and spend some time avoiding me."

I watched her brows draw together and felt a little stab of amusement in spite of the fact that asking for this hurt - and hurt even more because I knew perfectly well that it would hurt _her_. If not right now, certainly later. Her bond to me would see to that.

"There were things you wanted to think about," I continued as she took a breath to voice her confusion. "We will _both_ be better off in the long run if you take the time to reach your conclusions now."

Her eyes flew to my face, sparking with irritation. They were still damp with tears, but it warmed me to see an expression more characteristic of her lighting her face. Confusion and unhappiness didn't suit her. "Don't give me that bullshit," she snapped. "I'm supposed to be doing things _for you_. You're not supposed to ask me to do things for _myself_."

"Hello, Isobel," I replied softly. "Nice to see you."

She blushed to the roots of her hair and down her neck, dropping her eyes to the ground again, although I could see that she was still angry.

"One other thing," I went on as she tried her best to set the wet grass on fire with her glower. "Would you please accept - at the least - that I consider you my mate, and that my interpretation of my feelings and situation has validity _for me_?" Her eyes flew to mine again, but in surprise this time, her anger forgotten. "You can't know how you would interpret my experience, Isobel, because it isn't _yours_. It... _that_...bothers me a lot more than anything you just apologized for."

"Oh," she whispered, blinking a few times. "I...didn't mean it that way."

"Not everything can be reduced to an intellectual disagreement or exercise," I told her, uncertain whether she would understand what I was trying to communicate, but feeling the need to try to communicate it anyway.

I should have known better. "I guess I do that a lot," she muttered.

"Yes," I agreed, "but I'm not - generally speaking - complaining. Just...in this particular case, and maybe, occasionally, in a few similar cases."

"Sorry," she whispered. She looked so small and vulnerable standing there in front of me in the dripping rain, and I wished, again, that I could go back and redo most of what had happened between us to make it easier for her.

I really had been an idiot - exactly as she had said - but I hoped that I would manage to be smarter from here on out. And...maybe none of this ever would have been precisely _easy_. In addition to being different _species_ , we were both stubborn.

I stepped towards her, wishing desperately that I dared wrap my arms around her and hold her close - but if I did, I might never let go. So, instead, I bent swiftly and brushed a kiss against her face, conveniently upturned in surprise at my sudden nearness. I had, perhaps, moved a little more quickly than was strictly human.

Her silky skin was warm and damp from the rain and her tears, and just touching her sent a little thrill of pleasure through me. This wasn't going to be easy.

But if I wanted her to be mine - to _truly_ be mine - I had no choice.

"Have a good evening," I murmured to her.

Her whispered "you too," drifted after me through the rain.


	40. Chapter 39

Note: There's some house-related stuff happening this week (we're in escrow! yay!) so it may be a week before the next update. Depends on how busy and/or euphoric and/or anxious I am.

In this chapter: evidence that Isobel's parents do, in fact, do some parenting.

* * *

XXXIX.

After Tuesday afternoon, it was almost exactly eight days before I spoke directly to Edward again.

It was a rough slightly-more-than-a-week. I didn't, it turned out, have that much choice on whether or not to tell Charlie the story I had prepared. I couldn't even begin to pretend that everything was fine. Nor could I pretend my not-fine-ness wasn't about Edward-not when I either startled or snapped every time his name came up. Charlie, never fully trusting any guy I might date, even Edward, wasn't about to let that go. He wanted to know why I was upset.

Have I mentioned that I'm not much good at lying?

I'm not much good at lying.

As far as I'm concerned, keeping up a pretense is the hardest kind of lying.

My prepared story was beginning to seem less and less clever, too. First there had been Angela giving me a dose of reality about the terms I was throwing around, and then I had to try to explain to Charlie exactly why I had made forum posts with enough personal information to allow a determined - or infatuated - observer to trace them back to me.

Mike needn't have worried about Charlie's opinions of Edward's behavior. I avoided using loaded terms, of course, though I did mention that I wasn't - or hadn't been - too pleased with Edward, but Charlie was a lot less concerned with Edward's actions once I had explained everything than he was with my faked stupidity. I got a solid hour-long lecture that began with "Isobel Marie Swan, I thought you were more responsible than this…" and ended with an argument over whether or not I had to delete all my social media accounts. He only relented because, first, I used social media mostly to keep in touch with my mom and look at pictures she posted and, second, I managed to salvage my terrible, stupid, unclever lie somewhat by first swearing that I had already deleted my profiles on the forums where the fake posts had occurred, and then adding that the posts in question were a few years old. Fourteen-year-old me, I reasoned, was allowed to be more naive than seventeen-year-old me-and luckily Charlie agreed, even if he didn't like it.

I did accept an order to spend the rest of the afternoon in my room doing homework, and thanked every one of my lucky stars that it was _Charlie_ I'd had to recount the story to. He didn't quite know me well enough to see I was lying. When I heard him on the phone with my mom half an hour later, I knew I had hit the lucky _jackpot_. It was possible that I might have pulled off lying to Renee over the phone since she wouldn't have been able to see my face, but it was much, much safer to have Charlie doing the telling.

I didn't even mind the additional lecture from _her_ that I had to sit through later in the evening.

At school, Lauren - Tyler in tow - began joining us for lunch again in order to gloat starting Thursday. Under other circumstances, I would have actually been okay with that. Alice wasn't about to abandon me and she was a master of both the cool dismissal and the back-handed compliment. There were moments when I honestly felt like I should be taking notes, and I sometimes suspected Jessica _might_ be. Watching Alice square off against Lauren-the-perpetual-bitching-machine would have been a _pleasure_ had I been less on edge.

I wasn't less on edge, though, and all Lauren's verbal barbs were converted in homing darts by the mere fact of my over-sensitivity. Of course, Lauren had no idea what the _hell_ she was talking about - I meant that generally, not just in regard to Edward - and I was perfectly aware of that fact. But she reminded me that Edward and I weren't really speaking, let alone doing anything else, and that hurt so much that - well, I actually considered the possibility that I might be going crazy.

Or maybe that the pain would _drive_ me crazy.

So why didn't I just give it up? Edward wasn't avoiding _me_ \- he had advised me to avoid _him_. That meant it was up to me. Why was I torturing myself?

I asked myself that exact question every single morning, and usually multiple times throughout the day - sometimes an average of once a minute in classes I shared with him, especially Spanish. (Yes, I calculated it out. What else was I supposed to do? Pay attention to the teacher? _Please_.)

The answer was a little bit complicated. The easiest reason was that he had advised me to avoid him _for_ a reason - because I needed to sort my shit out. That wasn't exactly something I could accomplish overnight. I was working on it, and between Angela, Alice and my mom, I hoped I wasn't annoying any one person too much in doing it.

The next-easiest reason wasn't easy at all, in any sense of the word. It was both a lot less tangible and a lot more uncomfortable. It went like this: it wasn't like I had no experience with not liking myself. My mother was beautiful, graceful, charming, and even poised to the extent that very few things rattled her cheerfulness. Most of the time I looked about as charismatic as a toad beside her. There were _lots_ of things that I was, at least occasionally, less than thrilled about regarding both my general physical and personality attributes, and my behavior. But I'd always felt like I _knew_ myself, and even if I didn't like what I knew, I could stare at it unflinching and come up with ways to deal with it.

That...wasn't true anymore. My feelings for Edward - the way I had acted towards him and reacted _to_ him - I didn't recognize any of it at _all_. And that was, frankly, sort of terrifying.

My mom tried to reassure me that it was normal - that all adolescents went through the same thing and came out the other side alive. (I forbore mentioning depressed teens who committed suicide since it would have made her worry unnecessarily and I definitely wasn't referencing myself.) But - somehow her reassurances weren't the least bit comforting. All I could keep thinking was that I had always kept myself, both mentally and emotionally, so carefully organized, and none of this was supposed to happen to me.

Why had I done all that work if _this_ was the outcome?

I was fully aware how petulant that sounded, so I avoided saying it out loud.

The other reasons for drawing out my torture were fragmentary. There was some shame involved - once I started dealing with Edward, I would have to _deal with Edward_ , as in, I would have to face to all the crap I had said and done and how it had affected him. I also had this weird, nagging little fear that I was better off dealing with the pain of _not_ being with Edward, than I was dealing with how right we felt together and how much I wanted to keep that rightness, maybe bottle it up and then bathe in it every day - I didn't know. My metaphors were getting weird. Probably a sign of mental instability.

I recounted a few of my increasing numbers of craziness indicators to Angela over milkshakes at the diner Friday night, offering them up with choice observations to make her laugh. It was nice to have _someone_ laughing at me. God knew that _I_ wasn't finding much to laugh about, but adding dry commentary on my own idiocy did help put things in perspective a little.

Angela spent a few minutes sipping thoughtfully at her milkshake after I had finished. "You know," she said after several long moments of silence, "I just realize that you always do this."

"Always do what?" I asked.

"Well, when you're happy, you're happy, and when you're angry, you're angry. But anything else...you sort of use humor to, um, _minimize_ whatever it is you're feeling."

I shrugged. "I guess that's just the way I deal with things."

She nodded, but she was frowning.

"What?" I asked, knowing from her expression that there was something else.

"Well, I'm just wondering," she said, looking at her milkshake, " _are_ you dealing with it, or are you _avoiding_ it?"

My brows drew together in confusion. "I don't understand the distinction you're drawing," I confessed.

It was Angela's turn to look confused. "How do you not understand the difference between those things? When you _deal_ with something, you find a way to resolve your feelings - a different perspective, a way to let go of something that isn't really your responsibility, or even just, hmm, an acknowledgement that your feelings are _there_ , but aren't really productive. And, you know, sometimes it takes a while - repeated acknowledgement, calling yourself back to the perspective you've decided to adopt, stuff like…" She trailed off as she glanced at me and saw my utter incomprehension. "You have no idea what I'm talking about."

"Where did you even _hear_ all that?" I wondered.

"I did therapy for a few years," she told me.

"Oh," I replied, struggling not to ask why. Angela's mom might have weird ideas about religion, but Angela herself seemed fairly comfortable in her own skin. At least - she did when she wasn't in the center of a large group.

She laughed at whatever she saw in my expression. "I was on the verge of an eating disorder," she explained without prompting. "Being the pastor's kid isn't always easy - there are lots of people watching and judging _all the time_. Luckily my dad spotted what was going on before it got too out of control and got me help."

"Oh," I repeated, but this time more positively, admiring her willingness to be open about it. "Still, though," I added, "I don't really understand. Feelings cloud judgment and so it's bad to just act on them, so anything you can do to get them out of the way is good, right?"

It was Angela's turn to stare at me. "You think feelings cloud your judgment? I mean - sure, sometimes. But as a general rule? You really believe that? That you should do everything based on - I don't know, logic, I guess?"

"Of course," I replied, but then my confidence faltered. "I mean - doesn't everyone? Isn't that just - something that's true?"

"No?" she said. "And I can guarantee that you don't believe it, either - not _really_."

"How could you possibly know that?" I wondered, more confused than offended.

"I know because of stuff like…" she sighed, "stuff like when you came to pick me up to take me out that night that my parents were arguing over the dance. You never treated me like my feelings were wrong, even when they didn't make a lot of sense."

"But they _did_ make sense," I insisted. "Your mom was the one who was wrong."

"That part, sure - but you also understood that ice cream would make me feel better even though it solved absolutely nothing, and you understood when to stop pushing me about," she lowered her voice, "Ben."

I...didn't have an answer for that. It was true - none of that was strictly logical, Angela certainly wasn't being logical about Ben, but it still seemed obvious to me that, to comfort someone, you didn't spout a bunch of proofs at them. But if that were true...where did it leave my adherence to reason as the solution to everything?

"Reason and emotion aren't in opposition," Angela told me. "Feelings have their own logic that you have to understand and work with. If you do, your feelings and your reasoning will work in harmony together, with one reinforcing the other - and that's why you _deal_ with your feelings instead of _avoiding_ them. It lets you live - more smoothly, I guess, as a whole person, with all your energy focused in the same direction."

I sat back in my seat, my head spinning. Was that true? Was that the way one was _supposed_ to live? I mean, I - I did spend a lot of time and energy battling my feelings. I thought that was just...the way it was. Either you fought or you got carried away on every last wave emotion. Like...well, like my mom. But the picture Angela was giving me was different from both things - and on some level it _did_ seem to make sense. Why be constantly at war with yourself if it were possible to harness that energy to do something more outwardly productive? Had I - had I spent my _entire life_ thinking about it the wrong way? If so… "I think," I told Angela carefully, "that you may have single-handedly demolished the philosophy that my _entire life_ has been built around."

We stared at each other in silence for a moment - and then Angela clapped her hand over her mouth as she started laughing.

"What?" I demanded, annoyed and a little hurt.

"You're _seventeen_ , Isobel," she choked. "I _think_ you have time to work out a new one!"

But I had worked hard on the philosophy I _had_! I sniffed, still hurt by her lack of understanding - until the absurdity of it began creeping over me. I wasn't even a quarter of the way through the normal life expectancy for a woman living in the United States, and I somehow expected to have the fundamentals of life all figured out? How arrogant was _I_? I struggled with myself for a moment longer, biting my lip to try to keep my own smile contained - but Angela's laughter was infectious.

The first giggle escaped, and that was it - the entire dam broke.

It felt strange but somehow good, too, to put myself in Angela's place and look at myself - at all the useless gestures I made in trying to hold back forces that were as unstoppable as the tides. It was like - I was out on the beach building walls of sand and doing the occasional anti-tidal dance that I believed worked because it sometimes happened to coincide with a neap tide. And then, other times, I was standing on the beach with my back to the water and my fingers in my ears, screaming at the top of my lungs that there was no water and never had been any water even as it curled around my ankles and sent shivers up my spine.

I was _ridiculous_ , and somehow that realization wasn't even painful beyond a little hurt pride. It was a _relief_. It was such a relief that I couldn't stop laughing, and when tears filled my eyes and spilled over, I wasn't even sure whether it was from the laughter or from some other emotion entirely.

Five minutes later, Angela and I were draped across our respective bench seats, gasping for air and occasionally breaking out into laughter again as our eyes met underneath the table. I was still trying to get used to how it felt to breathe freely - because that was how it suddenly felt: like some invisible restraint had been untied from around my ribs, and I was learning what it meant to really fill my lungs. "Oh my gosh," she panted, "I cannot _believe_ how seriously you take yourself."

"Especially for someone who makes all those jokes, right?" I snickered in return.

She erupted briefly into laughter once more. "It's so true!"

"What is _wrong_ with me?" I asked.

"I don't know!" she replied.

We lay there for another moment, just trying to catch our breaths. "So," I said at last, as some of the euphoria faded, "what now?"

It was a good question: epiphany or not, I wasn't stupid enough to think that everything was suddenly fixed. Apparently I was behind everyone else on this "dealing with feelings" thing, and so now I needed to figure it out. As much as I loved my parents and knew they loved me, I very much doubted that either of them would be any kind of guide on this one. Charlie was restrained, like me, though he did it differently, and my mom wasn't just _in touch_ with her feelings, she was pretty well ruled by them.

"Hmm, that's not easy," Angela sighed with obvious reluctance, pushing herself to a sitting position a moment later.

I did the same. "It's okay if you don't know," I told her. "I get that you're not, you know, a trained therapist or something. I just don't know who else to ask for advice." If Angela didn't know, I was sure I could find some answers _somewhere_ , though it might take some searching. Self-help books were largely a load of bullshit, but I was sure there were real therapy resources available online - at the very least peer-reviewed research into the methodologies that provided the best outcomes. Binge reading peer-reviewed studies to find out how best learn about my feelings seemed fittingly absurd and exactly like the kind of thing I would do.

"Well, I don't know _much_ ," Angela said, adjusting her glasses, "but I'll tell you the first thing my therapist told me to think about: when you start feeling something that seems overwhelming or really out of place, try asking yourself _why_ you feel it. Then just...spend a few minutes letting the question percolate and see what you come up with. Sometimes it won't be anything, especially at first, but you'll be surprised after a while at how many answers you get from yourself."

"Huh. Okay," I said with a shrug. That sounded pretty simple. "I'll give it a try."

After that, because Angela had brought up the subject of Ben earlier and because I didn't want my problems to monopolize our _whole_ evening, I spent a little time bothering her about him, threatening to set them up on a study date or something if she didn't make some kind of move herself. I was joking - mostly - but for the first time it occurred to me that Edward's ability really _might_ be useful occasionally, especially when combined with Alice's. There was no point in pushing Angela towards Ben if it was inevitably a disaster, but if it was a viable relationship, Alice and Edward would have the keys to figuring out how to bring it about. Normally I wouldn't have condoned behavior like that, but, well, I really wanted to see Angela happy with someone who appreciated how great she was.

It wasn't until I began my drive home that Angela and Ben slipped from my mind and my thoughts returned to my own tangle of problems. I found myself thinking about the things Alice and Edward had said about vampire mating, and pondering what it meant to be mated to someone. I wondered...I wondered if it felt anything like what my parents had once felt for each other.

Charlie almost never spoke of their short marriage, but Renee - hopeless romantic that she was - had filled me in on the whirlwind summer that had started it. That summer - the summer of 1993 - was the summer Charlie's mother had died and, immediately following her funeral, his father had made the decision to follow her to the grave as quickly as he could drink his liver into oblivion. Renee, meanwhile, had been at the end of a two-year hitchhiking trip that took her from her stepfather's home in Lynchburg, Virginia, all the way to California and then up the coast. She had run away from home just after her sixteenth birthday and met Charlie just after her eighteenth. They were married within three weeks. She got pregnant a year and a half later, and their divorce was finalized just before my second birthday.

All told, their marriage spanned only a little more than four years, and part of that was spent in divorce proceedings.

Besides their initial romance, Renee had sometimes told me about other little moments from their marriage - always the happy ones, mostly because, I thought, she didn't want to say anything that might make me question my relationship with Charlie. That she could recount those happy times with a smile that bore no hint of wistfulness had always made it very clear to me that she had closed that chapter of her life and moved on.

That meant it couldn't feel the same way for vampires, right? Because my parents had split up, and vampires didn't - _couldn't_.

Then again - what was it Alice had said? Something like - being mated came with all the same problems human couples faced, just without the option of divorce.

What would my parents' lives look like now if they hadn't been able to end things?

A little shudder of fear and - something else - longing? - went through me as I pulled up beside the curb in front of my house. Renee was happy with Phil and I didn't grudge her that. But Charlie - would things be better for Charlie if she had never left? If she had been _forced_ to stay? Or would his love have eventually faded into resentment as they clashed again and again - and again?

They were _very_ different people. Maybe, as vampires, they never would have been drawn together in the first place.

I leaned back against Simone's seat and raked my fingers through my hair. There really wasn't any way to know, and so thinking about it was a waste of time.

But - I wondered. Besides, Angela's words were fresh in my mind, and so I didn't quite dismiss out of hand the ache that rose in my chest as I wondered. Maybe it meant something.

Maybe - but I didn't know what it _could_ mean, and, no matter how many times I asked myself, no answer was forthcoming. After a few minutes, I clambered down from Simone's cab and left her with an affectionate pat as I went inside and went to bed.

Usually I didn't dream - or if I did, I never remembered more than vague impressions of light and color. Sometimes, at best, I half-remembered beautiful, scintillating colors in hues that I wasn't quite certain I could put names to. I never remembered _any_ dreams about people, though.

That was what made my dreams that night so very strange.

They all involved four people: me, my mom, my dad...and Edward. Sometimes I was a child again, being carried away in my mother's arms as, behind us, both Charlie and Edward called out to us not to go. Other times I _was_ somehow my mother, trying desperately to take control as thoughtless cruelties directed at Charlie spilled from her mouth - _my_ mouth. When her eyes slid past Edward entirely, I could only scream inwardly in frustrated despair, hearing the ragged, desperate edge to his voice as he swore that he couldn't live without me, and knowing somehow that it was _true_. I kept waking up and trying to turn my dreams other directions, but it was no use. It was like someone had hit the repeat button on my brain, and then just left it.

It was _not_ a restful night, and I decided other people could _keep_ their coherent dreams. I wanted my usual nonsense ones back, thanks very much.

I was in the kitchen reflecting on my dreams, wondering if they had anything to do with my conversation with Angela, and banging my head softly against the wall while I waited for the coffee to brew, when Charlie came looking for me. Somehow I had been under the impression that he had left for work, but I should have known better - the coffee pot was clean when I came down.

"Morning," he grunted.

I mumbled something in reply, and then we spent a long moment watching the coffee brew.

The steady drip was so hypnotic, and I was so tired and so wound up in my own thoughts, that I had almost forgotten he was there by the time he spoke again. "Bells, you know that trip you're planning to Seattle next Saturday?"

Seattle? For a second it didn't ring a bell, but then it came to me all in a rush. "Right. Yeah," I muttered. "Seattle."

I felt more than saw Charlie glance at me warily, confused by my odd response. "You're still going?"

I shook my head, trying to shake out my dreams and - alright, I maybe wouldn't have minded if my entire brain had gone with them. Like one of those old Etch-a-Sketches, right? Just clear out everything and start over. "Yeah," I sighed, "I'm still going."

"I've been thinking about it," he said, "and, given the age and condition of your truck, I'd really rather that you not go alone."

Alright - that sort of made sense, there were areas where cell service was definitely lacking between here and Seattle, except that even through my haze of exhaustion and weird, tangled emotion (water? tides? emotions were more like _jungle_ ), I could see that Charlie was a little too uncomfortable. So what was this really about? My mind, willing to put in a little more effort now that it had something to latch onto that it understood, began weighing the possibilities. Was it about my fake internet stupidity story? Did he not trust me now? No - that didn't seem like it. He would have been more belligerent about that. This seemed...sneakier.

The answer came in a series of wordless bursts of understanding: talking about the dance last weekend - about Edward not going - admitting I was upset with Edward on Tuesday - and now this request, today. "Are you trying to force me to ask Edward to go with me?" I demanded, a little incredulous.

Charlie's cheeks reddened, but he held his ground. "Hoping, not forcing," he told me calmly. "Any of your friends are fine - "

"It's just that most of them will be _at the dance_ ," I growled.

He shrugged. "Well - if you don't want to ask him that much, make a new friend who isn't going before next weekend."

Finished saying his piece, he turned and left the room.


	41. Chapter 40

Note: Excuse me while I go fall into bed. It's been that kind of - however long it's been since I last updated. I've lost track.

I will _try_ not to let this happen again, but I can't promise anything. School. House. Computer implosions. You know, the usual.

One last thing: all the stuff I mention about meditation in this chapter? Totally true. Look it up.

* * *

XL.

Over the course of the week and a day I spent separated from Isobel, I primarily thought about two things: priorities and principles.

It started with priorities - which I supposed included principles, but didn't single them out. I could feel my priorities shifting, and wondered worriedly if this was what Rose had meant about choosing one's mate over everything else, or if I was simply integrating a new piece of information in a perfectly rational and natural way.

I went back and forth, trying to decide. First I thought: it couldn't be what she meant, could it? I was prioritizing Isobel's well-being - which, now that I knew I was her mate, included her emotional well-being - over everything. _That_ meant that I was unlikely to turn her - or at least to want to. She was better off as she was. And yet, though Alice had shared her most recent visions of my future with Isobel only reluctantly, they hadn't materially changed.

My second thought, the one that seemed utterly irrefutable, was that her destiny still seemed to be undeath. But - I didn't see how we got there from where we were now, or whether my shifting attitudes had anything at all to do with it.

Not being able to decide and, at the same time, seeing the future unchanged made me feel trapped, hemmed in by fate. My entire solution prior to Alice's revelation about relationships between humans and vampires had involved my own withdrawal. Now, such a solution was unthinkable. So what did that leave me with?

Alice said "resignation to the inevitable," but I knew almost as well as she did how malleable the future could be. I refused to believe that, when it came to human destinies, any concept such as "inevitable" existed.

During the day, I watched Isobel hungrily, wondering. We weren't speaking, but we did acknowledge each other with nods and wistful smiles in classes and when we happened to cross paths at lunch or after school. I could see - and Alice confirmed - that she was having a hard time. I worried whether I might not be setting her up to _want_ this shadowed half-life though my demonstration of the pain separation brought. Perhaps she would demand to be turned for _my_ sake, so that I would never have to lose her.

The mere thought made me sick.

At night, I went to the small clearing by the stream and argued with myself about all of it for hours, sometimes not returning home until it was nearly time to leave for school.

Though I was preoccupied and distant, my family didn't complain - at least not at first. Most of them didn't understand, both believing and hoping that Alice's vision would come to pass precisely as she had seen it. Still, they respected my turmoil.

At least - they did for several days. It wasn't until Friday after school that Emmett accosted me, breaking through my solitude and preoccupation to present me with _other_ problems that he believed required my attention.

I was busy considering the dark circles beneath Isobel's eyes and the slightly tremulous quality of the smile she sent my way after Spanish, when my brother's hand landed on my shoulder and pulled me unceremoniously toward a secluded part of the grounds.

We stopped inside a little cluster of trees and he turned to face me. "What's going on with Rose?" he demanded without preamble through clenched teeth.

"Excuse me?" I replied, completely mystified, and instinctively sent my mind in search of her. Her current thoughts were as unenlightening as Emmett's question - she was walking with Jasper towards the car, chuckling over a story he was telling her about catching Alice making up songs to sing to her preserved fish. I made a mental note to ask him about that later - it sounded good.

"Fuck, man," Emmett hissed, calling my attention from his mate, "get your _head_ out of your _ass_ and pay attention for once!"

I leveled a glare at him. "Emmett, how many times in just the last _year_ have you urged me to 'turn it off'?"

"Nah, bro, that was just about you cheating," he told me, dismissing it with a sharp gesture. I rolled my eyes. We had been over this thousands of times, and yet he still referred to my natural ability to see an opponent's next moves in a game or fight as "cheating," as though I had any choice in the matter. "This is about _real shit_."

"She seems fine to me," I sighed. "What's been going on?"

He took a couple of deep breaths and bit his lip before answering, his thoughts indicating that he fully expected me to mock him. "Well, first, she's been _reading_ \- "

His expectations were right on the mark. "Not everyone shares your aversion to the written word," I jabbed, not ready to let him off the hook for that cheating accusation.

" _Reading_ ," he went repeated without acknowledging my interruption, "from _Carlisle's library_."

Alright, I admitted silently, that was a little odd.

" _And_ she hides the book whenever anyone gets close. I mean, I guess Carlisle knows what she's been borrowing, but he's not talking." Emmett rolled his eyes expressively.

"This doesn't strike me as an emergency," I responded after turning it over for a moment. "Rose doesn't have to tell you everything she's thinking about as she's thinking it. Maybe you should give her some space."

"And maybe _you_ should do your fucking job and _figure out_ what she's thinking! Last night she told me that she _loved_ me and wouldn't trade me for anything else in the world!"

He glared at me as I tried to work out what, exactly, he was complaining about. It was hard not to compare my situation to his, and I would nearly be willing to kill if it meant Isobel said something similar to me. I couldn't read his issue from his mind, because his thoughts were all centered on his irritation with me, not whatever was disturbing him about Rosalie's behavior. "And that's a problem because…?" I said at last.

" _My Rosie_ isn't _sentimental_ ," he snarled, furious at me for not understanding his point immediately. "And," he added, "I _like_ her that way."

I sighed and ran a hand through my hair, trying to decide how intrusive I would need to be to get Emmett to leave me alone. "Fine, I'll talk to her," I agreed at last, "but I'm not going to try to ambush her. She doesn't _owe_ you an explanation - at least not right away."

"Fine," Emmett ground out through clenched teeth.

"You could ask Alice," I pointed out. The future might not be solid enough for her to get a read yet, but it had to be worth a try.

"I already did," Emmett admitted. "She told me to butt the hell out and let Rose think."

I shook my head at him, but promised to talk to her anyway, knowing that he would keep bothering me until I did. Anyway, besides Emmett's concerns, I _was_ rather curious about Rose's recent use of math to keep me out of her head. If she was reading Carlisle's books, it might be something they had devised together.

My chance didn't come until Saturday afternoon when Rosalie set herself up on the roof to take advantage of a break, not just in the rain, but in the _clouds_. In spite of the fact that she could no longer tan and that tanning was not an activity young ladies willingly engaged in when she was alive, she still had standing orders for Alice to let her know about any reasonably lengthy cloud breaks during the winter. I couldn't decide - because she couldn't decide - whether the warmth imparted to her flesh from the sun's rays made her briefly feel more human, or whether, in spite of her distaste of vampirism in general, she found it impossible to deny the aesthetic appeal of the way the light refracted from her inhuman tissues.

As Emmett had indicated, Rose had a book with her and - whether purposely or only incidentally - she kept the cover pressed to the roof so that it wasn't visible as she laid on her stomach to read. Though I could read the words through her eyes and saw immediately that the subject was some sort of philosophy - probably something related to ethics - either the author or the precise work was unfamiliar to me.

Rosalie's intentions became clearer as I climbed up to join her - she stopped reading, closed the book, and stuffed it under the blanket she had spread beneath her. I was met with a cold stare and a mind full of equations as I sat down beside her. "So," she said, her tone only a few degrees above absolute zero, "Emmett sent you to spy on me."

"He did," I confirmed with a shrug, seeing no reason to deny it, "but I had my own reasons for agreeing."

"And what are those?" she sighed, humoring me with scant patience and the hope that, once I got to the point, I would leave again quickly.

"Mostly what you're doing right now," I answered, referring to the math smokescreen that still obscured most of her thoughts, though the strongest and most immediate sometimes managed to surface long enough for me to read them.

For a moment, as she stared with me with steely eyes, I wondered if she would admit to knowing what I was talking about. Then she suddenly let out a short burst of laughter and relaxed. "I see. You like it?"

I smiled wryly at her arch tone. "Lately? Not much," I replied, thinking of Monday afternoon when she had tied me up.

My answer drew another laugh from her. "Well, that's good. So what do you want to know about it?"

"Emmett told me you were borrowing books from Carlisle," I told her with another shrug. "I thought the two things might be related."

"Not really," she said with a shrug of her own. "Or, if they are, they're only tangentially related. I suppose you might call my mental block an extension of his research into meditation, but it might be a stretch."

I felt my eyebrows go up. "You participated in his research on meditation?" I asked somewhat incredulously. Carlisle had been fairly interested in meditation ever since I had first met him. Back then, it had mostly been about religious experiences that seemed to transcend religious belief. Saying the rosary or the walking meditations performed by some Christian monks led to - according to various accounts - experiences remarkably similar to those reported by Hindus or Buddhists or Transcendentalists.

Carlisle's research had become more focused in the last two decades as science and medicine began documenting the physical changes brought about by meditation in humans: lowered stress hormones; adjustments in the methylation of DNA, leading to altered gene expression; even changes to the reactivity of the vagus nerve, which had implications for chronic inflammation and autoimmune diseases. Given all the health benefits for humans, Carlisle wondered increasingly what the effects of long-term meditation might be on vampires. Unfortunately, vampires did not present easily-recordable objective health indicators - our bodies were, in fact, almost perfectly static. Nor, thanks to the nature of the practice, was there a feasible way to perform a double-blind test to measure a single vampire's attitudes before and after the introduction of a meditation regimen.

Having been through medical school more than once myself, I understood why Carlisle found meditation interesting, but I saw no way to form a falsifiable hypothesis regarding its efficacy at promoting mental health in vampires, and so had never volunteered to join Carlisle and Esme in their daily meditation routine. My siblings had shown even less interest, with Emmett going so far as to term it "their daily devotions to complete wastes of time."

That was why Rosalie's implied curiosity surprised me.

"No," she said in answer to my question. "I didn't go that far. He was going on about Zen Buddhism one day - a bunch of stuff about having one's thoughts under control and how it might make the thirst easier to deal with - and I suddenly thought, hey, maybe if I could control my thoughts, I could keep my dumb little brother from picking my brain any time the whim happened to strike him."

"I'm not your little brother," I told her. "Did you get Carlisle to teach you?" I was surprised he hadn't mentioned it.

"Nope, went online and did research," she replied. "I figured - all the information, none of the lecturing." She rolled her eyes.

"So why math?" I wondered.

"Because it's engrossing without needing to spend twenty or thirty or sixty minutes every day sitting and doing _literally nothing_ ," she answered.

"It's a clever approach," I admitted after a little thought. She had found a way to very effectively block me out and, at the same time, had managed to avoid relying on or imitating Carlisle - which I knew was something she wouldn't care for.

We were silent for a moment, and then Rose said abruptly, "I'll tell you if you want to know."

I picked up from her thoughts that she had moved on from mental obfuscation and was referring to the philosophy she had been reading. "You don't have to," I told her.

"I don't know, maybe I want to," she sighed. "Sadly, you're really the only one who's likely to get it."

"Oh?" I asked, a little surprised.

She pulled her book out from under the blanket. "Soren Kierkegaard?" I asked, even more surprised as I read the cover. I had only ever read _Either/Or_ , while she was apparently in the middle of _Repetition_ , which I knew only by reputation. It was a fictionalized account of Kierkegaard's first love and his subsequent decision not to marry the girl - and an odd book for Rosalie to be reading. She didn't strike me as a Kierkegaard sort of person. The only philosopher I could truly imagine her responding well to was Nietzsche.

She frowned. "Better than the guy Carlisle started me with - some weirdo named Kant? As in - Kant get invited to any parties because he's a hopeless buzzkill?"

I chuckled. "I've heard worse descriptions of Immanuel Kant."

"After that was Hegel, who had a fucking answer for everything, the smug prick," she scowled briefly before dropping her eyes back to the cover of her current book. "And now I'm on to Kierkegaard-the-emo-kid. I swear it's what living in your head must be like."

"Uh, no," I replied. "We may have _some_ similarities of temperament, but I can guarantee that Kierkegaard and I do not share any notable patterns of thought." I wondered why Carlisle had given her Kierkegaard - not to mention Kant and Hegel. One thing was clear, though: "I suppose this explains your sudden romantic turn."

"Romantic turn?" she repeated scornfully. "What romantic turn?"

Her tone prompted me to raise my hands in a placating gesture. "According to Emmett." Maybe it was less clear than I had assumed. "He mentioned that you were unusually affectionate - _verbally_ affectionate - the other night."

She laughed. "Oh, that. I'm not sure I would call that _romantic_ , considering what happened after. Did he tell you - "

"He didn't tell me anything," I interrupted, already desperate for her to cease the train of thought my words had just summoned. She was picturing certain portions of my brother's anatomy - along with the bite marks she had left there - entirely too clearly. "You still haven't told me _why_ you're suddenly doing all this reading," I reminded her, hoping that would get her mind onto some other subject faster.

Her eyes fell as her thoughts became more serious. "It's not easy to explain."

"But you said I would understand it," I reminded her.

"I said you were _likely_ to understand it," she retorted.

There was no point in replying to that piece of pedantry, so I just levelled a _look_ at her.

Her movement stilled for a moment. "So the thing is…" she began at last, "it occurred to me recently - I'm sure you'll be able to guess why - that my feelings and my actions don't line up at _all_ with my principles."

I nodded. She had helped Alice give me hope regarding Isobel.

"I could deal with that - just barely - when it was only Emmett," she went on, twirling a strand of her hair around one finger. "It was instinct. I didn't have a choice. I was forced into it. But it's _not_ only Emmett - and, even more, the truth is that I _don't_ regret turning him, I _don't_ resent loving him, and even if he isn't my choice, he _would_ be if I had one. I mean, let's face it - if I wanted to go back to being human that badly, I could just kill myself. If I were human I would have died that...that night. And even if I hadn't, I would surely be dead by now."

Her eyes, currently a dark amber, met mine, and I nodded again - slowly. She had a point.

"Well - so I started thinking: maybe my feelings aren't the problem. Maybe my feelings know exactly what's going on. Maybe the problem is my principles."

I hadn't really expected that conclusion, and found myself briefly at a loss. "But - what about humanity?" I asked after a moment, trying to articulate my confusion. "What about...motherhood?"

"I wanted - I _still_ want - to be a mother," she said, her eyes leaving me and roaming out over the treetops. Their distant ranks were beginning to darken as the clouds gradually closed in again. "I will _always_ mourn losing that chance. But...is that really what I'm going to reduce my existence to? The fact that I wanted a child and didn't live to get one? Is that all the meaning I can find in my life - in a _woman's_ life? It can't be. I already don't live like it is."

"Hmm," I said - a noncommittal sound. Even though I shouldn't have been thinking of myself, the selfish fear tripping me up was that I was about to lose my staunchest - really my _only_ \- ally on this subject.

It took a concerted effort to push aside my own concerns. Rosalie had suffered for many years under the weight of both her grief at losing the chance to be a mother and her own judgment of herself for bringing Emmett with her into undeath. If she made peace with herself - even if it meant widening the rift that already existed between us - I _had_ to be glad for her. "What principles will you adopt in place of your old ones?" I asked her.

"I don't know yet," she answered. "I asked Carlisle for a system that would help me make sense of - us - what we are - but I don't think he's giving me that. It seems he's trying to teach me how to find or build my own system - which is _not_ what I asked for."

"But probably more useful in the long run," I pointed out, feeling compelled to defend him. His method had a number of aspects that were potentially superior to the easier path she had requested, not the least among them that, if Rose learned some philosophy, she would feel less frustrated over her inability to match Carlisle in discussions of ethics.

She waved away my point, though, her thoughts determinedly stubborn. "Still not what I was looking for. So...everything is still up in the air."

"Except that you've decided that nothing about Emmett was a mistake," I offered, a smile touching my lips.

"Nothing _between_ me and Emmett is a mistake," she corrected with a snort. "There's plenty of things about Emmett that are mistakes."

"I'll tell him you said so," I told her, my smile widening. "He was worried you were going sentimental on him."

"Really? What a fucking idiot," she scoffed. "He should know better than anyone what an irredeemable bitch I am."

"You aren't," I insisted.

She just laughed as she stood up. The last gleam of sunshine had disappeared, and so she picked up her blanket and began folding it. "Edward, I'm vain, self-centered and entitled. I know what I am, and I'm fine with it - I don't _want_ to think about others more or consider their feelings or," she shuddered, "find myself _feeling_ their feelings. A complete lack of sympathy is perfectly fine with me."

I opened my mouth to argue, but then closed it again. If Rosalie wanted to believe in her own facade, it wasn't my place to force her to face reality.

She reached up to ruffle my hair, just managing to brush the ends of it as I ducked away from her hand, unwilling to play the role of little brother. She laughed again. "Tell you what, since you meant what you said as a compliment, I'll do you a favor in return: no matter what I decide, if you need help talking that Swan girl out of turning, you can still send her to me." Her face fell abruptly into seriousness, and her tone, teasing before, mirrored her change in expression. "I don't know if she's the motherly type, but I wouldn't want anyone else to lose - to lose what I lost. Not if they have a choice."

Once again, I opened my mouth - this time to voice my thanks - but Rosalie hurried on: "Now if you'll excuse me, I need to find my mate and beat some sense into him." In the next moment she had leapt down from the roof and was striding away with fluid grace.

"Good luck with that," I called after her, and heard her answering laughter float back to me on the increasingly humid breeze.

I spread myself out on the roof where she had been lying before, watching the clouds thicken as it began to rain again and thinking about principles.

It was, I realized for the first time as I considered the grey sky, rather an odd concept: reaching a handful of conclusions about what constituted moral behavior and what it meant, more generally, to live a good life, and then consistently acting in accordance with those conclusions. On the whole, it was laudable, of course - consistency was, on the whole, positive; unpredictability was dangerous and untrustworthy.

And yet there was a dark side to principled behavior. What if, as Rosalie had said, one's conclusions about the world were simply _wrong_? There was no virtue in clinging stubbornly to them - acting in a consistently hurtful or unethical way wasn't particularly better than acting unpredictably.

My reasons for valuing humanity were not Rosalie's. As a human, I never much considered parenthood - or fatherhood more particularly. In the course of my seventeen short human years, I never saw anything _to_ consider about fatherhood. My mother acted as my parent while my father was as distant and incomprehensible as a monarch, a president, or a god. I spent a moment sifting through my increasingly faded human memories for a single conversation I had shared with my long-dead sire, but came up blank. There were a few dim recollections of orders addressed to me in a firm, measured tone, but I had the impression, even nearly a century later, that we had both understood that no answer from me was ever needed or desired.

Perhaps it was strange, then, that I thought of Carlisle as my father. If the word "father" was so emotionally disconnected for me, why had I attached it so readily to the man who had served as my mentor and model?

I spent a moment pondering. Perhaps I was simply using language in a standardized way that had nothing to do with my own experiences. It might be more accurate based on my own experience to call Carlisle my mentor, but I was aware that, colloquially, "father" implied both "mentor" and a closer, emotional connection. Even without ever experiencing such a connection with my own father, I had imbibed from somewhere the awareness that such connections were possible - and perhaps even expected.

Well - in any case, none of that had anything to do with Rosalie. The value she placed in motherhood found no answering impulse in me; though we had reached similar conclusions regarding the value of humanity, we had done so by beginning at entirely different points and making entirely different assumptions. Thus a change in her principles did not necessarily cause me to question mine, even if I accepted that hers might be faulty.

It wasn't _necessary_ for me to question mine, but - Rose's doubts still left me thoughtful. I wondered, in particular, where Isobel and I made the same assumptions, where we made different ones, and whose were more correct.

I lay wondering on the roof long into the night.

On Sunday, Alice went to visit Isobel, balancing a stack of fashion magazines almost as tall as she was beside her on the seat of her little Lotus Elan. My irrationally strong impulse to go with her was twofold: first, it was absurd that my sister was allowed to spend time with my mate when I wasn't. Second, I knew Isobel wouldn't be thrilled by the way Alice intended to spend the afternoon, and, between the two of us, we might have successfully diverted my sister's attention.

Instead, I talked myself into staying home.

I spent most of the afternoon composing a stormy, disjointed piece that doubtless would have been too pretentious and avant garde for Isobel's tastes, but I had no patience for anything mellower or more melodic. (Someday, I vowed silently, I would succeed where her mother had failed and make her understand the merits of avant garde compositions. Though I was, generally speaking, so far unimpressed with Renee's preferred parenting mode, perhaps we might coordinate on the musical front. Isobel would never be able to resist a concerted two-pronged attack, especially not when Renee's evident enthusiasm was backed up by my extensive knowledge of music theory.)

Alice came home in the evening with memories of her conversation with Isobel to share with me. A lot of her memories - at least the ones she showed me - centered around their discussion of fashion. I could tell there were other thoughts lurking behind the ones she allowed me to see, but I could catch only wisps and glimpses, all permeated with the conviction that the moments she was hiding were things Isobel ought to tell me herself.

I wasn't certain how I felt about that, but had to admit that if, for instance, Isobel had already come to the conclusion that I was her mate, I would rather hear it from the first time directly from the source, and not through my sister's memories.

That eventuality seemed unlikely, though, especially when Isobel was still avoiding me the next day at school, looking even more tired and depressed than she had the week before. Her shoulders hunched forward in a way I hated to see, and I could tell that she was falling a little behind in her classes. Thankfully she was more than smart enough to catch up later, and her friends - especially Alice and Angela - slipped her copies of their notes without being asked.

I wondered what she was thinking. It was some comfort to know that it involved me - I recognized the symptoms of separation from one's mate entirely too well - but I wanted to know more specifically. I wanted to know whether she was beginning to understand the inadvertent lie I had told her. I wanted to know if she was realizing what I meant to her. I wanted to be a participant in the development of those thoughts.

But, alas, this was something Isobel needed to discover for herself. The only way to give her the opportunity to do so was to demonstrate for her how separation felt.

Tuesday was much the same as Monday, with only a little added unpleasantness with the generally unpleasant Lauren Mallory to add any variety. Lauren seemed to be under the impression that verbally trashing Isobel to my face would somehow endear her to me. I set her straight almost as coldly as she deserved and hoped that news of the interaction wouldn't reach Isobel. It meant nothing, but I could easily imagine how sensitive Isobel was likely to be right now. I was, after all, experiencing something similar myself. The difference was that I understood what was happening and had in place methods for managing my feelings. Those methods were, in part, thanks to Alice, but something was owed, too, to my recent practice at avoiding peering too closely at particular minds whenever it became inadvisable.

Not that I didn't want to murder Mike at least once a day - and other boys occasionally, though somewhat less often - but that was another contingency that Alice's visions could largely provide a defense against.

On Wednesday, I knew that my hopes for a quiet end to the scene that had transpired between myself and Lauren were not to be fulfilled. There were a great many thoughts and eyes directed my way as soon as I made my appearance on campus. Alice, who hadn't been nearby for that particular interlude and had been too focused on Isobel to catch it, couldn't tell me precisely what had been said or by whom. Whatever the original rumor was, though, it had clearly been distorted in at least a dozen different ways as it passed from person to person.

And the origination point? Alice couldn't tell me for certain, but I could make an educated guess: Jessica's horror at the things people were saying about Isobel was tempered with a substantial dose of excitement and just a hint of smugness.

 _I'll find out how she is_ , Alice thought at me, heaving a mental sigh as she pictured Isobel - who had looked defeated enough the day before. _Maybe she won't notice? She hasn't noticed much this week._

I raised an eyebrow at my sister, unable to see the future she was hiding from me, but able to guess its contents if she felt the need to hide it.

I spent a moment seriously considering some sort of drastic action - perhaps running out to meet Isobel and whisking her away before she could hear anything at all from her classmates, friends, or "friends."

That last category was largely filled by Jessica, of course.

 _Don't you_ dare _,_ Alice thought at me, surprising me with her vehemence. It made sense in the next moment, though, as her thoughts flickered over the reasons why I ought to see this day through.

I didn't get everything - her slip-up was too brief for that - but I did see enough to realize that this ordeal was just about to end, and that the terrible-friend tag team comprised of Lauren and Jessica was about to accomplish what more than a week of separation and reflection had not.

I waited impatiently through my first three classes, but Isobel didn't show up for gym. _Don't worry,_ Alice thought at me as she sailed into the gym. _She's even clumsier than usual today, so I told her not to come. I didn't want her to sprain an ankle._ A sprained ankle - or wrist - was, she showed me, a real possibility for Isobel today in gym. _Pay a little attention to Jessica, would you? I'd like to know what she's_ really _thinking._

That meant, I supposed, that Jessica had given out some kind of explanation for the rumors she had spread, and Alice wanted to know how much of it was true.

I reluctantly turned my thoughts towards one of my two least favorite - at least currently - Forks residents. Jessica was sneaking glances my way and wondering about Isobel. _Is she going to do it? She hasn't already, right? Edward looks unhappy - well, he never looks_ happy _, but I wonder if he's mad at me too…_

Slowly - entirely too slowly - as her thoughts spun, they spun back around to what, exactly, she had done. Most of it didn't matter; she and Lauren were both spreading their own versions of what had happened and neither was accurate, though Jessica's didn't paint Isobel as a villain (though some of her speculations _did_ paint her as a lesbian, which was still controversial enough in a small town like this to potentially cause some trouble).

Jessica's justification to herself was two-fold: first, she hadn't said much of anything behind Isobel's back, but had called her up to report nearly all of it the night before. Second, she sincerely hoped that the rumors would prompt us to talk things over and, with luck, patch things up. (Isobel hadn't told anyone other than Angela about our talk after Spanish more than a week ago or why she was still avoiding me.) Of course, Jessica's reasons for wanting us back together were fairly selfish: Mike was entirely too concerned about Isobel, as I was very well aware of from occasionally overhearing his loudest thoughts.

Isobel was not terribly impressed by Jessica's justifications, though _why_ she was angry wasn't precisely clear. My perception was that it had more to do with the things being said about me than anything Lauren or Jessica had said about her, but I hoped I was wrong. Isobel surely had to understand how little I cared for human opinions. She was the one who needed to live embedded within society for her mental well-being. None of it could possibly matter to me.

I didn't have a chance to immediately report anything to Alice, especially since she, Angela and Isobel were conspicuously absent from the cafeteria at lunch. A short mental search allowed me to locate Angela and Alice in the library, with Isobel and Angela trying valiantly, under Alice's tutelage, to ignore everything that was going on long enough to finish a math assignment.

At their usual table, Jessica spent the period listening unhappily as Lauren gloated and Mike and Tyler made passive-aggressive jabs at each other. Only Ashley was there to back her up against Lauren - June was pretty well done with Lauren and, like Isobel's little group, had found somewhere else to be. I was glad to see Jessica reap the rewards of the friendships she had cultivated; Lauren was more vicious than some vampires I had encountered.

The biology hour following lunch was much longer than it should have been. Mike was thinking daggers at me, Angela was alternately pleased by how much of her math assignment she had finished and worrying about Isobel, and, in her government class, Isobel was evidently giving June only half her attention as she lined up her opaque thoughts into patterns I couldn't see.

It was frustrating.

After an age, the period _finally_ ended and I headed - not without some trepidation - to Spanish. Would Isobel be there, or would she skip again? If she skipped, would she be waiting for me afterward? Or was I going to have to be angry at Alice for misleading me?

And then I was in front of the building and Isobel was in front of me - and she was waiting for me.

For a moment, I wasn't certain that it was me she was waiting for - I didn't want to presume - but she said my name and then turned to walk a little away from the path, glancing back at me with her wide, dark, wary eyes to see if I was following.

I stepped in close to her when she stopped walking, guessing that this conversation was going to be private, but she stepped back quickly, her breathing uneven, as she played nervously with the zipper on the front of her coat. My chest hollowed out instantly, and I wondered what it was she had to say. Though I tried to reassure myself that she was nearly as bound to me as I was to her and that Alice would have warned me had it been anything bad - still, the sight of her standing there so uncomfortably, unable to even look at me for more than a moment, was disheartening.

"So," Isobel began, her voice coming out in a rasp. She cleared her throat. "So there's...a couple of things," she tried again, more successfully. "I'd rather - one of them, I'd really rather," she stopped again and took a breath, her eyes flickering to my face - and then, unexpectedly, stuck there.

"I think I'm in love with you," she whispered.

It came out more like _IthinkI'minlovewithyou_ , but my ear was adept at decoding much swifter speech, and so I had no trouble. Her cheeks instantly went scarlet as she dragged her eyes away from mine.

"That's - that's the first thing," she tried to continue, her voice little more than a squeak. "The second thing - "

"Hold on," I interrupted, fighting down the giddy laugh trying to claw its way out of my chest, "I think that _first thing_ deserves a little more attention, don't you?"

Somehow, my afternoon had just taken a turn from dismal to utterly, incomprehensibly dazzling.


	42. Chapter 41

Note: I guarantee I'm not going to have time to edit and upload this tomorrow, so here's a slightly early chapter as a sincere _mea culpa_ for the previous late one _and_ the subsequent cliff-hanger ending. Did I write this entire thing today? Why yes, yes I did. I also wrote a short paper for class (which, incidentally, got an A _and_ a compliment beyond the usual "nice work") and spent like four hours doing research on architecture so that I could correctly describe the house you're going to read about. Do you see how efficient I am when I can get myself to focus?

I should probably cultivate an Adderall addiction. Sure, I'd die young, but I'd get a lot accomplished before that happened!

* * *

XLI.

Edward's lips curled up into one of his breathtaking smiles. "Hold on," he said leaning towards me, "I think that _first thing_ deserves a little more attention, don't you?"

 _Shit_.

But also...maybe a bit of a relief.

I really hadn't meant to tell him like this. I _meant_ to ask him to come with me to Seattle, and I figured that, on the drive there and back, we would have plenty of time to talk about all the little details of my feelings - like the fact that I was pretty sure, whatever he thought he knew about humans, there was some kind of mating thing happening for me here. The problem was, I wasn't certain how attached he was to believing that humans were different and, as unlikely as a huge blow up over it seemed, probabilistic estimates hadn't held much influence over my dreams the last couple of nights. (Seriously, though, who did I talk to in order to return these shitty dreams and get my old ones back?)

Besides, admitting that I loved Edward at school, less than ten feet from our next class? _Not romantic_. I didn't think I cared that much about romance - though I had no real way of knowing - but I got the impression that maybe he cared a lot.

So...yeah. That confession was completely unintentional. It was apparently the kind of thing that happened when I got too close to him for the first time in way too long and started breathing in his spicy scent, layered over some other, sweeter scent that I couldn't quite place. It was like...citrus? Maybe lavender? I mean, that didn't even make sense - those two things didn't smell remotely similar.

Well - maybe they both smelled clean to me so it was possible that was -

This really didn't matter.

 _The point_ \- if I even had one anymore - was that it just sort of tumbled out when I got close to him and looked into his currently-somewhere-between-amber-and-brown eyes. Probably because it was true, and I seemed to have a distressing tendency to blurt out true things when I got flustered, especially when it was Edward doing the flustering.

I risked a look up to find him laughing at me - not out loud, but definitely internally. He took a step toward me, leaning in even closer at the same time, and I had to ball my fists up in my coat pockets to avoid throwing myself on top of him. "I mean," he said, continuing the conversation from the point at which my thoughts had spun off into Definitely-Renee's-Daughter-Ville, "if we move on to the second thing now, you won't get to find out whether I feel the same way."

"I already know you feel the same way," I pointed out in a rather ungracious grumble. In my defense, he was _laughing_ at me. Not out loud, but still.

"Isobel." I looked up at him half-unwillingly. "I love you," he whispered.

Oh. Maybe knowing it and hearing it were more different than I'd thought, because - huh. I really hadn't been expecting the sudden rush of warmth to - well, pretty much everywhere. Suddenly cartoons where a character became love-struck and disappeared into a pink haze seemed _totally reasonable_.

Unfortunately, my own warm pink haze, as well as my reflection on cultural symbolism surrounding romantic love, was abruptly dispelled by the warning bell. I pulled my gaze away from Edward and sent it reluctantly toward the classroom. "I guess I'll have to tell you the second thing after class."

His shocked expression would have been comical if I hadn't _still_ been feeling more than a little flustered. "You're planning on _going to class_?" he demanded incredulously.

"Uh, yes? I haven't been the best student this last week, and I really need to catch - "

"Hold on," he cut me off, taking my arm so that I wouldn't walk away. "If you want to catch up, going to class is the _last_ thing you should do."

I glanced up at his earnest expression, feeling the barest thread of humor beginning to sprout as the prospect of a nice, reasonable argument began to soothe my agitation. "The last thing? The _very_ last thing? Because I can think of lots of things that would be less productive than going to class."

He chuckled at my literal interpretation of his statement. "Spending the afternoon with me," he returned lightly, "isn't one of them. I can fill you in on everything you've missed _and_ help with any studying you need to do. Besides, I've seen your house and room. Don't you want the chance to see mine?"

Well, he _did_ have me there, even if I knew perfectly well that we weren't going to be studying Spanish anytime soon. I mean - we hadn't talked in more than a _week_. I _deserved_ some time with him, right?

I removed his hand carefully from my arm and then slid my hand into it. "Okay," I said. "I guess if Jasper can drive your siblings, we can take Simone."

I didn't miss his shudder _or_ his eye-roll. "Or," he suggested, "we could leave her here and I could run you to my house."

"Run me…?" I began to ask before my brain fully caught up. I had seen how fast Edward could move and had embarrassingly first-hand experience with how strong he was. _Of course_ he could just pick me up and carry me to his house, cave-man style.

Cave-vampire style?

"Sorry," I said quickly before he could begin explaining. "Yes, that makes sense - except that, I don't know, doesn't my scent bother you? Can you really handle carrying me all the way to your house with the wind rushing past and all?"

His brow furrowed. "I suppose it hasn't come up in conversation - how odd. I don't actually _need_ to breathe, Isobel. More precisely, I need air in order to _speak_ and I find it more comfortable not to be cut off from the information scent can give me, but it isn't necessary in any physical sense."

"Oh," I said, incorporating that bit of information into my understanding of vampires. "I did wonder about that - but I forgot. But," I added, "what about Simone?"

"I can bring you back here later," he pointed out.

"But what if something happens to - "

"Isobel, no one wants your rattling trash - " He saw the look on my face and paused. "No one wants an - a very old, but, uh, still appealing and - robust? - truck."

" _I_ want her," I informed him with a sniff.

"Right," he allowed with exaggerated patience, "but no one _else_ does. If your doors are locked, I'm sure you'll be fine."

I chewed on my lip. "You'll bring me back before it gets too late?"

"I'll bring you back the moment you want to leave," he promised.

"Well, _that_ part might be a problem," I said, feeling my cheeks heat.

He studied me for a moment, obviously not understanding. "Why a problem?"

"Who said anything about _wanting_ to leave?"

He grinned down at me and tugged at my hand, drawing me willingly toward the trees that lined one edge of the grounds. The grass was a little wetter than my shoes were made for, and my socks were pretty damp by the time we made it, plus my hand was cold from being held in my vampire boyfriend's, but holding his hand made me feel warm in a completely different way that made it difficult to focus on physical discomforts.

We paused just inside the trees for Edward to carefully adjust my hood, tucking my hair inside it and zipping up my coat as far as it would go. "You should wear a scarf," he muttered as he worked.

I had no idea what any of this was for, so I just watched him, torn between confusion, amusement, and the thrills of pleasure that followed anywhere his fingers happened to brush my skin.

"And why don't you wear _gloves_?" he asked, indicating that my hands should go into the pockets of my coat.

"I tend to lose them," I admitted. "It's very frustrating to have an entire collection of single gloves."

He paused and looked at me, one eyebrow raised. "Why not buy several pairs of the same gloves, so if you lose one you can just replace it?"

Huh, I hadn't thought of that. It wasn't a bad plan, though I wasn't sure Charlie would be so enthusiastic, considering he would probably be paying for it. "Not all of us are independently wealthy, you know," I reminded Edward. "Losing gloves is careless and cold hands won't materially hurt me. I'm sure Charlie would rather not buy a bunch of gloves that I'm slowly going to lose over the course of several months."

"You're uncomfortable without gloves. _I'm_ sure your father cares more about that than a little added expense," Edward retorted.

He didn't wait for me to come up with another reply, but instead swooped in and scooped me up in his arms. I squeaked in surprised, but immediately found myself cuddling up against him.

"Keep your hands in your pockets and your face against my chest," he advised.

Suddenly we were in motion, and I understood why Edward had taken such care to cover every bit of my exposed skin. His speed was such that the wind whipped by fast enough to sting. I shut my eyes tightly, breathing in the mingled scents of rain, conifer, and Edward. Though his stride was remarkably smooth, we were still traversing uneven ground, so I could definitely feel the speed. Somehow, in spite of that, there was nothing frightening about it. Edward's arms wrapped around me, holding me tightly, reminded me of a series of long-forgotten moments from my childhood: some summers, when I visited, Charlie had taken me to the Enchanted Village on the way back to Forks. I remembered riding on the kiddie roller coaster with him - _with_ him, because I was too afraid to go alone. It was only with his arm around me that I could be certain I was absolutely, completely, unquestionably safe.

Edward's speed and his arms around me recalled some of those old, visceral childhood feelings. It was a little bit nostalgic - like suddenly hearing a song that recalls you to a very particular time and place or period of your life. I sighed, content, and let myself, for just a moment, stop thinking.

It wasn't long before we arrived at the Cullens' house. I wasn't quite certain how far it was from the school - especially since we didn't need to keep to the roads - but I doubted, from the descriptions I had overheard from various classmates, that it could be less than five miles, and we had covered that distance in well under five minutes.

Edward let me down on the smoothly paved driveway, which led to a roundabout that was wide enough to both park cars along both sides _and_ leave plenty of space for even a large vehicle to get through. Radiating off from the roundabout was a smaller - driveway? lane? I wasn't sure what to call it - leading to a couple of outbuildings. One of them was obviously a garage - a _huge_ garage - with four two-car doors set on the side I could see, and it might have been deep enough to have a similar set-up on the side I _couldn't_ see. It looked like the paving surrounded it entirely, so I thought it was a good bet.

The other outbuilding was more difficult to pin down - it did have a large garage door at one end, but a smaller, human-sized door on the other end, several windows, and a couple of skylights made me suspect that it might be a shop.

I turned my attention to the house only after I had finished examining the outbuildings on the principle that the best should be saved for last. The house really was the best - it was large, white, and absolutely beautiful. The main bulk of it was a single large rectangle, two stories, with a number of dormers set into the roof, which was that sort of barn-like style that older houses sometimes had. There was a smaller, one-story addition built onto one side - it might have originally been a garage. The walls were covered in shuttered windows, with flower boxes attached to those on the second story. "Wow," I said, the only comment that immediately came to mind.

"The house, when we got it, was originally built in the Georgian style," Edward told me, "It has that simple shape, chimneys at either end, and the extensive use of dormers. Esme thought it would be interesting to blend with a little Dutch colonial - that's where the gambrel roof comes in, the 8-over-8 windows, the shed-style dormers, and the switch from brick siding to clapboard. There's no cross-gabling, though, the way you'd see in a usual Dutch colonial. She did, however, extend the simple pediment entrance to create a hybrid between the classic Georgian style and the somewhat larger porch that you'd typically find on a Dutch colonial."

I really didn't understand most of what he said, but I nodded along gamely. Any way you broke it down, it was a beautiful house.

Nor was it less beautiful inside. Edward took my coat, offering to give me a full tour as he did so, as I gawked at the entryway, The flooring was definitely real wood - no laminate here - and surprisingly varied in tone. "Reclaimed wood," Edward told me when he noticed me studying the floor. "It was common in the late 19th century to use different varieties of wood within the same floor to create visual diversity without going to the expense and trouble of installing parquet flooring. Using reclaimed wood is environmentally-friendly and provides the same effect."

In contrast to the dark floors, the walls were pale cream, with a simple crown molding and low chair rail in white. Edward led me to the living room next, which was done in the same colors, but warmed by tawny gold fabrics and accents, with occasional splashes of red and orange here and there. There was a beautiful fireplace with a clean-lined surround whose main ornamentation consisted of stone inlay of some sort - "Marble," Edward answered when I asked. It was flanked by built-in bookshelves packed with lovely leather-bound volumes that my hands itched to caress. I restrained myself, though - at least for the moment - and let Edward continue the tour.

The family room shared the fireplace on the other side of the wall from the living room and was a little warmer in color, with the gold Esme seemed to like carried onto the walls. It was also more obviously lived-in than the more formal living room - there was a piano for Edward pushed into one corner, more built-ins around the fireplace (these filled with less luxurious but more practical hardback novels), a desk with a computer against one wall, and a large table sporting a number of drawers where Jasper and Emmett apparently played and stored their games. On the other side of the table, French doors led out to an expansive deck that was shaded by vines trained over a pergola and partially surrounded by a carefully maintained hedge of greenery. Though it looked cold and dismal now, I imagined it was absolutely delightful in the summer. "Wisteria," Edward told me when I asked about the vines. "Grapes are a popular choice in a lot of places," he added with a smirk, "but not so much for us."

The formal dining room - and I wondered what on Earth a bunch of vampires needed a dining room table for - was back at the front of the house and had a fireplace of its own, done in the same style as the one in the living room, just with slightly smaller proportions. It, of course, boasted yet _more_ built-ins, but these were arranged for holding table linens and fine china rather than books. Across a narrow hall was an absolutely pristine kitchen, probably owing to the fact that it had likely never been used. "We don't spend much time in here," Edward joked.

"Why include it at all?" I wondered, running my hand over the butcher block countertops. Granite was, apparently, too trendy and modern for Esme.

Edward laughed. "How successful do you think we would be selling a house without a kitchen?" he asked.

"Oh - right," I said, feeling stupid.

"Besides, Esme enjoys the challenge of making something that fits the character of the house, but still has all the modern amenities that you humans like."

"I think she succeeded," I told him, taking note of little details like the farmhouse sink, glass-fronted cabinets, and the probably-antique china hutch that dominated one wall.

"You should tell her you think so," Edward said.

"Where is she, anyway?" I asked, remembering that, after all, Esme didn't have a job and didn't go to school like Edward's "siblings."

"Up in her room," he answered with a shrug. "She knows we're here, but doesn't want to intrude. She'll probably slip out to do some materials shopping once I've finished the tour."

"Oh," I said, a little disappointed. I wouldn't have minded seeing Esme again.

"She won't have a reason to stay away once the others come home, so I'm certain you'll be able to say hello before you leave."

"Oh," I repeated more brightly.

Edward took my hand and began leading me back toward the stairs. He paused in the hall briefly to nod at a door set in the end of the wall - one that presumably led to the addition that might or might not have once been a garage. "That's just the laundry room," he said, "and, beyond, the suite of rooms that Rosalie and Emmett share."

"I see," I replied, wondering silently if vampires needed to do laundry.

Upstairs were four bedrooms and two bathrooms that had been modified to form two separate suites - one for Esme and Carlisle, and the other for Alice and Jasper. Edward nodded at one of the closed doors. "That's Carlisle's study, and his personal library is in there. Esme also has a drafting table, but I think she works just as often at the one in the studio Alice and Jasper share," he said, indicating the appropriated door with another nod, "or at one of the computers in the library on the top floor. If she tries to work while Carlisle is studying, he ends up talking to her instead, and neither of them gets anything done."

Even though I didn't know Carlisle at all, I could still somehow picture it very clearly and found myself smiling.

"Last floor," Edward said, leading me toward the stairs.

"You know," I noticed as we ascended, "I don't think I expected your house to be quite this warm. And I mean that in the temperature sense, not the decorating. Your body temperature is so cold that I just sort of assumed you didn't need heat."

He paused at the top of the stairs and turned to face me. "We don't, but we do _like_ warmth. We would need to keep the house at a minimum temperature anyway, just to make sure the pipes don't freeze. It isn't much more expensive or wasteful to keep it a little warmer, which additionally makes us seem more normal if someone happens to drop by. Esme installed very efficient heating during her remodel - radiant flooring downstairs, where she completely replaced all the floors, and radiant wall heating upstairs, where she completely rearranged the walls. Besides," he added, "we generate most of our own electricity - there's a stream that runs across the property and so Rose set it up with a micro-hydro turbine of her own design not long after we moved in."

I had never heard of a "micro-hydro turbine," but it seemed pretty self-explanatory. "Well, I'm not complaining or anything - I _do_ need heat."

He grinned at me and continued down the hall. "On this end of this floor," he said, pushing a door open, "is our collective library, plus a small recording studio that Esme built into one corner for me."

"Library" seemed an odd designation for the room - there were books, yes, but an unusually high percentage of them appeared technical in nature, and there were more computers than shelves. Plus there was other electronics...stuff. Maybe related to the recording studio? I didn't know, but I looked up at Edward, confused.

He smiled a little sheepishly. "Well, we _call_ it the library, but...maybe it would be more accurate to call it a workspace for computer-related business. Including, uh, _illegal_ computer-related business."

Ohhh. Well, that made much more sense. I didn't imagine it was easy to be an immortal in human society, especially as technology and tracking methods became more sophisticated. "Good to know - now if I need to engage in cyberwarfare against some regime that I've deemed illegitimate, I know where to come," I joked.

Edward eyed me speculatively. "I'm not sure - you have a hot temper. Perhaps we should keep you _away_ from the means of causing international incidents."

I stuck my tongue out at him. "Are you going to show me your room or what?" I demanded.

He smiled smugly and led the way across the hall. "I also have two rooms and a bathroom," he told me as he opened the door.

"That doesn't seem fair," I teased him, "there's only one of you. And what do you need a bathroom for, anyway?"

"We still accumulate dirt," he informed me, "especially our hair. It's worthwhile to shower once or twice a week."

"Oh, I see," I replied maybe a little perfunctorily, trying to peer past him so that I could see what his room - or at least one of his rooms - looked like.

He smiled at my preoccupation and moved out of my way by stepping through the door. I followed after him, taking a deep breath and noting with pleasure that the air smelled of him.

My first impression was mostly one of masculinity, especially compared to what I had seen of most of the rest of the house, which was very determinedly neutral. There was no chair rail on this floor, just crown and kick moulding. Both were still white in Edward's room, but the walls were a medium grey. Shelves lined the walls, many of them carrying CDs, though a few held books. In one corner was a clean-lined wooden desk with a laptop closed on top of it. The opposite corner held what looked to be a favorite reading nook, with a contoured chaise upholstered in some velvety fabric that was roughly the same color as the desk. An ivory leather bench - or maybe more of a large ottoman? - was pushed against the wall, allowing the reading nook to double as a conversation area. A large area rug pulled together the colors in the room with a simple geometric design in grey, brown, ivory, and pale blue.

The most visually interesting thing in the room, though, was undoubtedly the art on the walls. There were at least a dozen landscapes interspersed between the shelves, many photographs, but some paintings, too. It shouldn't really have worked that well, especially with the different media, but Edward had brought order to the visual chaos by, first, consistently using the same simple, clean wooden frame for every piece of art and, second, choosing pictures where blue and green dominated the color palette, with only the occasional splash of yellow for variety.

I headed straight for the first grouping of photographs in order to examine them, Edward trailing behind me. "And here I thought you would choose the books first," he murmured in my ear.

I cast a glance back at him, over my shoulder. "My mom and I spent a lot of time at art galleries when I lived with her. Forks doesn't even _have_ a gallery. I've been art deprived."

"Is that so?" he replied, sounding pleased - which I assumed had more to do with my art appreciation than my art deprivation.

Photography wasn't something I knew all that much about, but at least I could see that the shots were well-composed, so I said so.

"I'll let Emmett know you like them," Edward said.

"Emmett took these?" I asked, surprised.

Edward nodded, smiling. "He's too impatient to study, but he has a natural eye - much to Rose's irritation. These were just a couple of random snapshots he took while we were in Norway once."

I didn't know what it had to do with Rosalie, but I did like the pictures, so I repeated my opinion and moved on to the next group. I made my way around the room that way, commenting on the pieces and asking Edward about them when there was something I wanted to know, but mostly just drinking them in. I missed art galleries!

The final group was a set of three paintings, all fairly small but still interesting - for some reason they reminded me of my favorite Impressionists, even though the style was absolutely nothing like that. There weren't even visible brush strokes, in sharp contrast to the Impressionist use of broad, obvious strokes to create vague-yet-striking images. I especially like the middle one in the set - the other two were fairly standard bucolic scenes, but the middle one showed a storm rolling in over an expanse of rolling hills. One side of the painting was bathed in cool bluish light as the rain streaked down, but sun still lit the other side, gilding both the grass and the storm clouds.

"You've been staring at that painting for five minutes," Edward whispered in my ear, making me jump. Somehow I had almost forgotten he was even there. "Do you like it that much? Or hate it that much?"

"I like it," I reassured him quickly. "I _really_ like it."

"The artist is Albert Bierstadt," he told me, "one of his minor works. He was part of the Hudson River School."

I turned to stare at Edward blankly, unfamiliar with the movement.

"Well," he said with a wistful smile, "they weren't much admired in their own time - the mid-19th century. Their work was too romantic and the trend was towards increased realism. I love the use of light, though - "

"That's it!" I cut him off. "Sorry," I added with a little laugh, "I was just trying to decide why these reminded me so much of Impressionism when they aren't _anything_ like it. It's the focus on light."

"Ah," he said with a smile. "You like Impressionism?"

"Easily one of my favorite movements," I told him. "Now I'm going to have to look up the Hudson River School, though." I pointed to the painting of the storm. "This is so beautiful."

He seemed pleased by my interest - maybe because we liked the same kind of art? I wasn't sure.

Then he asked: "Do you want it?"

I felt my eyes go wide. Did I _want_ it? Well - sure. Who didn't want to own great art? But I couldn't possibly let Edward give me what was probably a very expensive piece. And - wouldn't it be sort of absurd to hang something like that on the wall of my rather dingy little room? And what would I tell Charlie?

Well, not that Charlie knew _anything_ about art.

Edward's expression, as I glanced back at him, was unexpectedly vulnerable, and I realized that he wasn't just asking - he really did want to give it to me. Or - he wanted to give me _something_ , something valuable, or maybe just something that I would really like. Maybe he didn't quite trust the fact that I was here and had decided I loved him.

I turned around slowly, trying to decide how to navigate this. He was so close that we were practically chest to chest, but I shoved my hands into the pockets of my jeans. "Thank you," I said, "but it would look very out of place in my room." He opened his mouth to protest, so I hurried on as inspiration struck: "How about this: you can give it to me, but it should stay on your wall. I mean," I smiled up at him, pleased with my solution and hoping that he would like it, too, "if an art thief comes after _you_ , you can deal with that pretty easily. If a thief comes after _me_ , I'll lose a painting I really love that's _also_ a gift from _someone_ I really love."

His expression remained wary for a moment longer, but then all at once a smile pulled at one side of his mouth and he dropped his eyes. "If you're just saying that to get out of accepting it, you've miscalculated," he told me. "It _is_ yours now."

"I'll come over often to check on it," I promised, "so, since it _is_ mine, I'd better not find you mistreating it."

He laughed and wrapped his arms around me, dropping his face to my hair. "I love you," he murmured.

I closed my eyes and let the pleasant pink haze take me again. "I love you, too," I whispered.


	43. Chapter 42

Note: Oops, I think my major is showing...

* * *

XLII.

Isobel was...different.

I could feel the difference as I held her close. She was leaning into me, but she wasn't initiating anything, didn't wrap her arms around me, wasn't demanding to be kissed, hadn't done anything more _physically_ forward than taking my hand today. Her attitude was...maybe a little bit wary. At least in that sense.

Less so in a more general sense. She had, after all, _also_ admitted to loving me, which was both welcome and unexpected, and was the precise opposite of wary.

I couldn't say whether the change was better or worse, at least not yet. All I knew was that something _had_ changed.

I released her only very reluctantly when she straightened, noting that it was yet another change - weekend before last, _I_ had been the one to apply brakes when it became necessary. Today she was the one setting the limits. What did it mean? I didn't know - though I did find it a little disappointing. Perhaps it was the same way she had felt when _I_ pulled away.

"Do you want to see my other room?" I asked.

"No," she answered, wrinkling her nose at me, "I haven't finished looking at _this_ one."

Ah, right - examining all my art had distracted me. She would still want to examine my shelves - especially my bookshelves - of course.

She glanced around thoughtfully. "You know," she told me, "most people these days are using these little things called mp3s and streaming services for their music?"

I snorted and poked her ribs, causing her to squeal and flinch away from me. "If you had agreed to look at my _other_ room before making judgments about my technological proficiency, you would have seen my _other_ computer - the one that boasts a solid state drive for the operating system, a terabyte drive for movies, and a _second_ terabyte drive for music. I _also_ have an extensive collection of vinyl."

Her reaction wasn't the contrition I was looking for. Instead she stared at me in mock-horror. "Vinyl?! Oh my _God_ , I'm dating a hipster."

She shrieked as I grabbed her again, but that was just too bad - she _deserved_ to be tickled into submission. "I'm from _1918_ , you impossible minx," I growled in her ear. " _Hipsters_ are nostalgic for a past they were never a part of."

When she finally begged for forgiveness, I found myself in a curiously familiar position - Isobel pressed against me, staring up into my face. I had almost kissed her once before in a very similar situation, but this time she was the one who dropped her eyes and pulled away, drawing in a shaky breath as she did so.

"Isobel," I began.

She shook her head and flashed me a pained smile. "Don't - say whatever it is you're about to say," she requested. "It's - it's not you. Well, it _is_ you, but not in a bad way. I mean - "

"Do you love me?" I asked.

"Yes," she answered instantly, echoing her words with a sharp nod. Then her eyes drifted away. "I don't know - maybe that's the problem."

It felt like my heart had just stopped - and like I was human enough for that to matter. " _Isobel_ ," I snarled.

"I'm _trying_ to explain," she snapped right back. "Can you - just - even for just the next _five minutes_ , can you _please_ stop assuming the worst? I don't know how to do this, so I need you to _just listen_ and not try to extrapolate anything I didn't _say_."

I was on the verge of replying with something cutting about last week - but then I _remembered_ last week, particularly Alice's words to me after I came home Monday evening: _If you had been listening to her instead of to everything you_ feared _she was saying…_

Right. I let out a sigh and buried my fingers in my hair. "I'm sorry," I told Isobel. "I can't promise not to assume the worst, but I at least promise to keep my mouth closed about it for a few minutes."

"Fair," she agreed, and then lapsed into silence for a long moment, her gaze fixed across the room.

I was just about to give in and speak when she finally managed to compose her thoughts enough to say _something_.

"I love you," she sighed, "and that's honestly really scary. It's - pretty much even scarier than I ever imagined it possibly could be."

This was not making me feel good or safe, but I kept my lips tightly closed.

"I am also _really_ attracted to you. I mean - I just want to - " she blushed furiously and didn't finish the thought, leaving me to wonder exactly how many different ways it _might_ have been finished.

"I guess…" she went on over my silent speculation, her brow furrowing, "maybe it's just too much. I don't even know how to deal with _loving_ you yet. When we get...close...I - " she made a frustrated sound and fixed me with beseeching eyes, "it's just _too much_. Does that make sense? At _all_?"

"It makes sense," I reassured her gently, offering her my hand. After a moment of hesitation, she took it.

"And no," she sighed, "I _don't_ know why it's scary. I was _trying_ to hold out longer and get better at this, but after Jessica started spreading rumors to counter whatever bullshit Lauren made up, I _had_ to talk to you."

Her statement left me confused. Alright, I supposed I hadn't ever _actually_ told her why she ought to avoid me, but I thought it would become obvious as she realized how painful our separation was. Actually - on second thought, that was probably not the easiest reasoning to get at, and, after all, she had told me she loved me, but _not_ that I was her mate. "Isobel," I said carefully, "why do you think we weren't speaking?"

She raised her free hand to her face and scrubbed at her eyes. "Because I freaked out and almost messed up everything," she answered. "I've been _trying_ to work it out since then, and I have figured out some stuff - "

"To the extent that everything was nearly messed up, we share the blame about equally," I told her. "Or - more of it is probably mine. I didn't listen to you that afternoon, and I went home prepared to leave so that, when I went crazy from losing my mate, you wouldn't be in danger."

"You _what_?" she demanded, snatching her hand from mine.

I chuckled and caught it again. "That's resolved, love. I'm not going anywhere."

"You had _better_ not," she grumbled. " _I_ don't want to go crazy just because _you're_ intent on playing the martyr." Her eyes flashed to my face as she realized the implication of what she had said, and she swallowed a couple of times as she took in my enormous grin. "Uh - I'm pretty sure you're my mate, too," she whispered.

I leaned in to press my forehead against hers. "I know," I whispered back. " _That's_ why we weren't speaking. Alice advised me to let you figure it out on your own."

Her mouth dropped open comically as she tensed. Then her mouth snapped closed and her eyes were blazing at me. "You - that - you _knew_?! And _that didn't seem like something you should MENTION_?!"

I could tell that she was honestly angry and maybe a little hurt, but it was a struggle to keep the smile off my face.

She took a deep breath. "Edward," she said very carefully, "I need to know how to kill vampires now."

Laughter bubbled up from my chest as I enfolded her in my arms, ignoring her efforts to get away.

"Let me go!" she demanded. "You are so dead, Edward. _Dead_!" Though she was yelling at me, I could hear a growing note of humor in her voice, and her next words didn't even make it all the way out before she started laughing: "I can't _believe_ \- !" she giggled, "I'm - I'm s-so going t-to... _kill_..." The end of that threat trailed away entirely as she momentarily lost the ability to speak.

We both spent several moments dissolved in mirth, though Isobel never stopped trying - at least half-heartedly - to get away, and occasionally managed to gasp an unlikely threat of bodily harm.

"No one else makes me laugh like you do," I murmured to her when my laughter finally subsided.

"No one else makes me as homicidal as you do," she retorted, managing to sound irritated again as she struggled to pull away from me more seriously. I let her go this time, carefully smoothing her hair as she glared at me. "I decided the 'humans don't have mates' thing was bullshit _Sunday morning_ , Edward! This could have ended _days_ ago. You...you are _such_ an asshole."

"If I had told you why we needed to be apart, love, there wouldn't have been anything for you to learn for yourself," I pointed out. "I'm sorry about the extra time. It hurt me, too, if it makes you feel any better."

She groaned and leaned against me, pressing her face to my chest. "In what _possible_ universe would that make me feel _better_?" she demanded, her voice muffled.

I forbore pointing out that she _had_ just been threatening to kill me. "Would it make you feel better to look at some books?" I asked instead.

"You're making it really hard for me to stay angry," she huffed.

"Good…?" I replied, making us both laugh again.

"Okay, okay - but you _owe_ me, Edward Cullen, and don't think I'm going to forget it."

I smiled and kissed the finger she was shaking at me. "You say that like I'm not going to owe you for the rest of my existence anyway, simply because you fell in love with me."

She blushed furiously, but tried to play it off by rolling her eyes and moving away from me, towards the nearest bookshelf.

I joined her a brief second later as she snorted, amused by something on my shelf. "What?" I asked, putting my hands on her shoulders. Our roles had been almost entirely reversed - now I found it difficult to keep my hands off of her. I was torn between the worry that I might make her uncomfortable and the understanding that this was, after all, _Isobel_. It was approximately impossible that she would have trouble letting me know if anything I did was _too much_.

"I am just _completely unsurprised_ to see how much poetry you own," she said, answering my question.

"Just these two shelves," I said, mildly surprised myself that she found it worth remarking on.

She touched my leather bound editions of the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_.

"A gift from my grandfather to my father when he graduated from university," I explained. "They're in Latin, and my father always had trouble with his Latin as a boy. I'm not certain whether the gift was meant as praise for overcoming a weakness, or as a sardonic joke."

She turned a little to look up at me, her eyes wide. "Did you know him?" she asked.

"My grandfather?" I clarified, and continued when she nodded. "Not really. He was, according to my mother, not a happy man - very harsh - but, when my grandmother died from pneumonia a few months after I was born, he seemingly just gave up. He died less than a year later."

"Something like that happened with Charlie's parents," she told me. "Only my grandmother died of cancer and it took his father three or four years to drink himself to death. I don't remember him - my mom says Charlie didn't want him around either of us."

"I'm sorry," I told her, but she just shrugged.

"Hard to miss people you never knew."

"What about your mother's parents?" I asked.

"That's a more complicated story," she said. "I'll tell you about it sometime. It doesn't really affect me directly, but it explains a lot about my mom."

A part of me wanted to hear about it now, but Isobel was already returning her attention to my books. She ran her fingers over my collection of Shakespeare's sonnets and then paused at the collection of John Donne's holy sonnets. "I feel like I should know this name," she said.

"Well, he's only one of the most famous poets of English history," I teased her, reaching past her to pull out the book. "I don't much care for his early work, but his later sonnets are beautiful."

"Oh?" Isobel encouraged, turning to face me.

"As a young man, Donne was…" I paused, trying to find the right words. "Donne was a religious skeptic, first - his family was Catholic during the early part of Elizabeth's reign, and kept practicing their faith in secret. His brother was executed for harboring a priest."

"Oh, that's...not nice," Isobel said.

"Yes. Donne chose to convert to the Anglican church rather than be martyred," I continued, "which, for a long time, he seemed ambivalent about. He put off his doubts about himself - his own loyalty and faithfulness - onto an entire bevy of women, whom he wrote a good deal of scathing and rather blasphemous poetry about. Some of it was even somewhat covertly directed at Queen Elizabeth."

"But that changed towards the end of his life?" Isobel asked, apparently fascinated by my summary of the salient pieces of Donne's history. "What happened?"

"He married - eloped with, actually - a woman to whom it seemed he was honestly attached, and lost much of his political standing because of it. She was sincerely religious and, by degrees, apparently brought him around and restored his faith. But…" I hesitated, "Donne always regretted his early behavior, and never was quite certain that he could be forgiven, particularly because he could never muster the passion for religion that he believed was required of him."

A smile pulled at Isobel's mouth. "Ah, so his later poetry is _tortured_. No _wonder_ you like it."

I shot her a dark look, torn between amusement and irritation. "I don't like it because it's _tortured_ ," I told her, reaching around her to put the book back in its place on the shelf. "I appreciate its honesty. Donne was fighting to come to terms with himself, and he captured his turmoil with an inspiring degree of grace."

"Hold on," she said, not acknowledging my correction, but grabbing my arm before I could finish sliding the book back into place. "I thought you were going to read me some of it."

I didn't need to _read_ her anything, so I finished pushing the book back into its place before beginning: "Thou hast made me, and shall Thy work decay?" I dropped my gaze to her face before continuing. "Repair me now, for mine end doth haste;/I run to death, and Death meets me as fast,/And all my pleasures are like yesterday." It was the first of Donne's holy sonnets - never, before now, one of my favorites, but somehow suddenly fitting. "Despair behind, and Death before doth cast/Such terror, and my feeble flesh doth waste/By sin in it, which it toward hell doth weigh."

I paused briefly. Isobel was staring at me with wide eyes. I bent over her, touching her face lightly, and the next words emerged in a whisper: "Only Thou art above, and when towards Thee/By Thy leave I can look, I rise again/But," I felt myself shudder, becoming suddenly conscious of the constant burn in my throat, still ever-present, "our old, subtle foe so tempteth me,/That not one hour myself I can sustain./Thy grace may wing me to prevent his art/And Thou like adamant draw my iron heart."

My hand fell away from Isobel's face, and she pulled her eyes from mine. "A little on the nose, I think," she muttered, and then sighed. "I can see the appeal, though. 'All my pleasures are like yesterday,'" she repeated thoughtfully. "What an amazing line. It has so much meaning and emotion packed into so few words."

"Donne's poetry is known for that," I agreed.

Abruptly, Isobel threw her arms around my waist and hugged me hard. "I love you," she told me.

Ah - it seemed I was going to have to comb through more of Donne's poetry to find appropriate verses. Or maybe just poetry in general? I held her close and pressed my lips to her hair. "I know. Thank you."

"Also," she added, a smile curving her lips, "you have my leave to look at me any time you want."

We returned our attention to my shelf, and Isobel resumed her exploration. In short order we covered:

John Milton's _Paradise Lost_ (Isobel: "And I'll bet you have the same soft spot for Satan that Milton does." Me: "Actually, I prefer Eve."),

Alexander Pope's _The Rape of the Lock_ (Isobel: " _Humor_?! You own _humorous_ poetry?" Me: a glare, followed by a well-deserved poke in the ribs),

a collection of Wordsworth's sonnets,

followed by a collection of John Clare's poetry (Isobel: "Hold on, is Wordsworth your _only_ romantic poet?" Me: "Yes, and only his sonnets are worth reading. Why on earth would I subject myself the the musings of a bunch of spoiled, upper-class brats playing at despair?"),

Elizabeth Barrett Browning's _Sonnets from the Portuguese_ (Me: "My mother read these to me before I went to bed when I was a child." Isobel: "Really? Are they good? Could I borrow them? Or - wait, is this the copy she owned?" Me: "No, it's one I bought. You can borrow it."),

A.E. Housman's _A Shropshire Lad_ and _Last Poems_ (Isobel: " _Two_ books by the same guy? You must really like him, and I've never even heard of him." Me: another poetry recitation),

several of T.S. Eliot's collections and plays, including _Murder in a Cathedral_ (Me: "I hope you know T.S. Eliot." Isobel: "'The last temptation is the greatest treason:/To do the right deed for the wrong reason.'"),

and, finally, a small volume of J.R.R. Tolkien's verse (Isobel: "Nothing more modern?" Me: "I believe I once mentioned that I'm old-fashioned.").

My second shelf of poetry was less interesting to her: though I had a few African American poets (Phillis Wheatley, Langston Hughes and Maya Angelou), most of it was in French, German or Spanish. I did recite a couple of verses from Baudelaire just to watch her delighted reaction to my fluent French, but translating them was more difficult. Emmett was a better translator than I was - I tended to become tangled in my own desire for precision.

Once we had finished the the poetry, Isobel consented to leave the examination of the rest of my shelves for another time, and followed me willingly into my other room. It struck me forcefully how odd - but undeniably wonderful - it was to have her there as she looked around, her eyes immediately caught by my art choices. While I sometimes entertained visitors in the outer room, the inner was more private, rarely entered by anyone other than myself.

Isobel took in the art for a moment - mostly album covers interspersed with theatrical posters - and then headed for the only section of wall entirely free of shelving. "Who did this?" she asked, indicating the art arrangement there.

I shoved my hands in my pockets, glad that at least I couldn't blush. "Jasper," I answered. The pieces that had captured her attention included three pen-and-ink sketches Jasper had drawn of me in various moods - laughing, concentrating (probably on a composition), and gazing solemnly at something at a distance. Around those were arranged Impressionist-style paintings Jasper had done of iconic album covers.

"Wow, he's _really good_ ," she said, reaching out until her hand just hovered over the drawing of me laughing. Then she turned suddenly and grinned at me. "I'd take _these_ home with me."

"Would you," I said flatly, not quite sure whether to be pleased or embarrassed or what.

"It's normal for teenage girls to put up pictures of friends and hot guys, right?" She gestured at the drawings. "Two birds with one stone."

I found myself smiling as I stepped towards her. "You don't have either of those things on your walls right now," I pointed out.

"Give me a break, I've only been here a month," she responded.

My brows drew together. "So your room in Arizona - ?" I found the thought of her room covered in posters of "hot guys" disturbing.

"Well...no." Her eyes shifted away from mine as a smile curved her lips. "I guess I'm pretty spectacularly abnormal," she said with a shrug. "Someone even once told me that I hardly seemed human."

"No, he said he would almost _believe_ you weren't human," I corrected. "And a lot of that is because you're far more intelligent and interesting than anyone human has a right to be. You _are_ similarly exasperating, though."

"Pot, meet kettle," she retorted.

Well, I probably deserved that. Her gaze shifted from me to examine the rest of the room. The walls were lined with shelves - these almost completely filled with music and apparatus for playing music, save one that housed some old films - but none of them were taller than my shoulder. Above them, ringing the room, were the album covers and posters. My desk, this one more industrial in style than the desk in the outer room, was placed nearer the center of the floor, with some expensive stereo equipment set up on more shelves behind it. A clean-lined wardrobe directly across from it held some guitars, a clarinet, and a violin, though of course those weren't visible. The only other thing in the room was a contoured chaise, similar to the one Isobel had already seen, that was placed in the optimal spot for taking advantage of the surround sound system I had set up.

"I feel like I just stepped inside your _head_ ," Isobel commented as she looked around.

I ran my hand through my hair. "Well - close enough, I suppose. What do you think of being inside my head?" I wondered.

"It's...lonely," she said, and then hurried on when she saw the surprised look on my face. "I mean, there's a lot of your personality, but it doesn't seem like it's meant to be _shared_ with anyone else." She gestured at the display of Jasper's art. "This is the only thing that makes it feel connected with anyone outside."

That - I looked around for what felt like the first time, seeing it through her eyes. One desk chair. One chaise. One set of headphones. It didn't matter much that vampires didn't strictly _need_ chairs or headphones or most human trappings - they were still comforting, indicative of a sociable attitude, and my room lacked them entirely. "I - suppose it is a bit lonely," I decided.

"You suppose _you've been_ lonely," she corrected me.

She cast the entire room in a completely different light, and I knew that if I didn't change the subject now, I was going to start saying things that Isobel would find _entirely_ "too much" at the moment. "Didn't you have a second thing to tell me?" I asked.

She blinked at the abrupt subject switch, but answered the question: "Yeah, I did. Do you want to go to Seattle with me on Saturday?"

Outside, a car pulled into the driveway and I recognized the thoughts of my siblings. "Yes, of course I do," I replied. Had she even really needed to ask the question? "It sounds like the others are home. Would you like to say hello to Alice and finally meet Jasper, Emmett and Rosalie?"

She nodded, and so I held out my hand to lead her downstairs.

* * *

Note: I do really like John Donne, though, unlike Edward, I actually prefer his blasphemous, misogynistic early poetry. It may be outrageously offensive, but it's just so _clever_.


	44. Chapter 43

(Not so) fun fact: On a quarter system, my husband's birthday falls near the beginning of the term. On semesters, it falls right at the beginning of midterms.

At least this is a long chapter. Definitely longer than I first intended. Which, incidentally, didn't help.

* * *

XLIII.

My feet had hardly touched the ground floor of the house when Alice launched herself at me, throwing her arms around my neck. "You're ours, you're ours, you're _all_ ours and we're never letting you go!" she squealed.

I hugged her back happily enough, but found myself giving her a stern look when she released me. "Don't think you're off the hook," I admonished her. "You _had_ to know what I was thinking on Sunday, just based on the questions I was asking. You could have told me that you already knew Edward was my mate!" I had thought at the time that it was strange she wasn't reading more into questions like "what does it feel like to have a mate?" and "how did you know you were in love with Jasper?" Then, I had just been relieved. Now it made sense, and I was annoyed.

She gave my arm and apologetic pat. "It was better this way. I checked."

Behind me, Edward let out a low chuckle. "This is a good introduction to what it's like to be a Cullen," he told me, his hand settling on the small of my back. "Alice shrieking in your ear and being smugly psychic at you."

"Hey!" Alice shrieked - not in my ear this time, though. Then something happened too quickly for me to follow, but there was a sharp slapping sound and suddenly Edward was laughing and rubbing his shoulder.

Emmett made an excessively loud and elaborate throat-clearing sound, drawing our attention his way.

"Right," Edward said, drawing me forward. "Isobel, I'd like you to meet...Jasper."

"Hey!" Emmett said, echoing Alice. From his outraged look, I got the feeling that Edward didn't usually tease his siblings like this. I liked the thought that he might be in a particularly good mood now that we were together again. I knew that _I_ was.

Everyone ignored Emmett - me mostly because I suddenly realized I had no idea what I was supposed to do. I wasn't really sure what the etiquette was here, but it felt like it needed _some_ kind of gesture, so I held my hand out to Jasper for a handshake. He smiled at me, looking maybe a bit amused but not displeased, and carefully closed his cold hand around mine. "Ma'am," he said in a distinctive drawl.

I felt my eyes widen.

"Oh yeah," Alice giggled, "it never came up. When Jasper isn't impersonating Rosalie's twin," she sighed happily. "he's my very own real-life Southern gentleman."

Jasper ducked his head, looking embarrassed, and I chuckled at both the dreamy quality of Alice's voice and his reaction.

"This," Edward said, moving on to the next sibling, "is Rosalie."

"Fuck you, Edward," Emmett grumbled.

"Oh hush," Rosalie told him. "Who would want to meet a buffoon like you anyway?" She pierced me with her cat-like eyes next, and I suddenly knew exactly how mice felt. "Well," she said lazily, looking me over, "you're not _completely_ hopeless. I suppose Alice might be able to do _something_ with you."

"Oh, Rose, be nice," Alice sighed.

Rosalie just sniffed.

A couple of weeks ago, Rosalie's undeniable beauty would probably have been enough to tongue-tie me, but I had managed to get used to Edward's - at least a little - and her rudeness dispelled most of the rest of my embarrassment. Adoration was hard for me to work around, and I didn't always know how to respond to veiled incivility, but forthright disdain? Especially directed at something as insignificant as my appearance? Yeah, I could take that.

I smiled at her. "Not all of us have twenty-four hours a day to spend on how we look, you know. Not only do we have to do human things like eating and sleeping, but sometimes we have outside interests, too."

Her eyebrows went up a little, and she looked like she was considering taking offense, but then she smiled smoothly. "Well...it certainly shows."

Not bad, I thought, congratulating her silently for being quick on her feet. It was possible that I actually _liked_ Rosalie. "Thank you," I said, deciding to take her statement as a compliment. After all, it was good to be more than one's appearance, right? And that usually required some kind of cultivation.

Her eyes narrowed, but I thought I saw the same flicker of amusement in them that our brief verbal sparring match had kindled in me.

In the next moment Emmett had shouldered her out of the way and was holding out his hand to me. "Hey," he said with a grin, "I'm Emmett."

His smile was infectious, and I found myself smiling right back. "Hey, Emmett. I'm - "

"Edward's _cygnet_ ," he interrupted triumphantly.

I turned to look at Edward in confusion.

Edward sighed and rubbed his forehead. "He _just_ learned the word for a young swan, and he's very proud of it."

I bit my lip, trying not to laugh. "I suppose," I said once I had gotten my laughter enough under control to at least attempt diplomacy, "that's not a bad way to describe it."

His grin widened. "Nice to _finally_ ," and here he elbowed Edward very obviously in the ribs, "meet you."

"Nice to meet you, too," I replied, still trying my best to be polite. "Edward showed me the photos you took earlier, and I - I really like them."

He looked blank for a moment, but then recovered and said: "Oh - the ones hanging in his room?"

I nodded.

He shrugged, not looking particularly interested. "They're fine, I guess," he said, "I wasn't trying to make artsy-fartsy shit. That's more Jasper's thing."

Rosalie smacked him, and he grinned.

"And Rosie's," he added.

She smacked him again.

Unable to decipher that interaction, I turned to Jasper. "Your art was pretty amazing, too. I _love_ your drawings of Edward."

Jasper smiled, but Alice cut in before he could say anything. "Edward showed you?" she squealed, bouncing and clapping. "Isn't my Jazz just the _best_? You _have_ to come see our rooms. _All_ our art is done by Jasper, and it's just like living in an art gallery, so wonderful, and the pieces are so meaningful - "

Jasper looked more dismayed than pleased by her effusions, and tried to get out of going with us. "I'll, uh, be out in the shop if you need me," he said.

"Don't be ridiculous," she replied. "This is Isobel's first time here! Of course we need you! You have to explain your art to her!"

Edward snickered and I thought I saw him elbow Jasper, while a look of extreme patience settled over Jasper's face. "Right," he sighed as Alice grabbed my hand and dragged me back upstairs.

Twenty minutes later, I was fairly certain I understood Edward's amusement: Alice seemingly knew absolutely everything there was to know about each piece of art, and was too excited to be showing it to me to let anyone else get a word in edgewise. Jasper, meanwhile, appeared embarrassed in the face of her extravagant praise, probably even more so since I was a virtual stranger. I would have felt the same way in his position.

Edward's repeated prods, significant looks and barely-contained laughter probably didn't help.

The art at least _was_ beautiful, and so when Alice demanded my compliments I was able to give them very readily. Jasper worked in a lot of media and styles - which I supposed made sense if he, like Edward, was pushing a hundred years - but he seemed to like pen and ink drawings, watercolors and, of course, his beautiful carvings the best. He also apparently preferred people and animals to simple landscapes, though he did have a few of those. Alice's evident favorites were his paintings of her fashion designs. Though I liked his carvings more, I had to agree that her picks were wonderful. He'd used watercolors, but, ghosting layer upon layer of paint, had given them nearly the brilliance of oils or acrylics, while still maintaining the soft, feathery look that made watercolor paintings so enchanting.

We had nearly finished the more public of Alice and Jasper's rooms when my art tour of the Cullen house was cut short by Esme's arrival home. Edward, aware of how much I wanted to see her, called a halt and ushered me back downstairs.

Esme met me with open arms - quite literally - pulling me into a hug before I could do more than say hello. It wasn't, I decided, much like one of my own mother's hugs, which were much more excited and Alice-like. Instead it reminded me of the hugs Charlie infrequently volunteered, and I found tears inexplicably prickling my eyes. I blinked quickly to get rid of them. It seemed like I had been so emotional recently. Maybe it was a natural part of learning that my feelings didn't just go away because I demanded it, but it was a little embarrassing.

Somehow I knew that I could trust Esme implicitly, maybe _especially_ with embarrassing feelings, so I held her tight as she told me how happy she was that I was there.

Afterward, Esme insisted that we go sit in the living room, directed Edward to share the loveseat with me, and then disappeared briefly to - apparently - demand that Rosalie and Emmett join us, given that they appeared moments later. Then Esme asked me triumphantly whether I would like some tea. I agreed almost reflexively, and she disappeared again. "Did she buy tea just on the off chance that someday I might come here?" I asked Edward in a whisper that I hoped wouldn't be audible to a vampire in another room.

"Esme is, above all else, an optimist," he replied with a shrug and a slightly ironic smile.

The six of us left in the room chatted a bit about hobbies as we waited for Esme to return. I remembered Edward telling me something about dirt bikes at some point, so I brought it up. The bare mention was all Emmett needed to get off and running, with Rosalie correcting some of his more exuberant exaggerations, while Jasper and Edward alternately argued with him and egged him on, seemingly mostly for their own - and my - amusement.

They were, I decided, a good model for the benefits of having a large family. I had always wondered a little - as most single children probably did - what it was like to have siblings. Of course I'd heard plenty of complaints from friends over the years, but the Cullens offered up a picture of what it must be like on good days, with lots of inside jokes (all of which Edward took the time to explain to me), lots of cheerful ganging up on each other, and, more generally, a pervasive sense of belonging.

It made me hope that Alice really meant it when she claimed me as one of them.

Of course, it probably helped that my current large-family model was peopled with a series of highly intelligent - including Emmett-the-goofball - stunningly beautiful, and mostly very clever individuals. It made the whole experience a little surreal - like finding myself inside a well-written TV show.

Esme returned a few minutes later with my tea, already sugared exactly the way I liked it. I thanked her. The banter trailed off and the Cullen siblings all turned to watch her as she sat down. It was funny - she really _was_ like their mother.

She paused to beam at both me and Edward. "Well?" she said. "You must know I want to hear _everything_ about how you made up. Tell me what happened!"

Edward and I exchanged a look, not quite sure where to start, so Alice jumped in and started for us. "Well, so, there's this girl at school. Her name is Lauren and she is a _huuuuge_ bit - "

"Cunt," Rosalie cut her off.

Everyone turned to look at her, Esme's eyebrows nearing her hairline. "Rosalie?" Esme said - her tone half a warning and half a request for an explanation.

"What?" Rosalie shrugged. " _I'm_ a bitch. You're not lumping me in with a moronic, narcissistic, soulless waste of blood and oxygen like Lauren Mallory. _She_ is not a _bitch_."

Alice giggled delightedly. "Rose makes a valid point."

Rosalie flipped her hair - apparently the TV show had taken a commercial break, and now I was in a shampoo ad. "I know," she said.

" _Anyway_ ," Edward continued, rolling his eyes at his sisters, "Lauren _is_ quite unpleasant and approached me yesterday - "

"Wait," I heard myself say, "that actually _happened_?"

"You didn't know?" he replied.

"How could I?" I asked in return. "Jessica told me that Lauren said it had, but she thought Lauren had made the whole thing up - since, you know, she was saying other stuff that didn't sound very plausible - like that you had dumped me because you found out I was cheating on you."

Edward rolled his eyes again. "Yes, she tried that one on me, along with 'Isobel was only dating you to make Tyler jealous.'"

The entire room erupted into disbelieving laughter, and I felt my muscles tense, wondering just how much of my date with Tyler was known to the rest of the family. Edward felt my sudden rigidity and put his hand on my back, rubbing it gently, before leaning in and whispering, "It's funny because they all know I'm your mate. Tyler has as much chance of fighting off a vampire as he does of winning your regard, and we all know it."

Oh. Right. That. I forced myself to relax.

Rosalie recovered first. "You should have eaten her."

"Not everyone is as vindictive as you are, Rose," Edward returned.

"No. _Fuck_ no. I wouldn't let my teeth within a foot of that - " she paused and glanced at Esme, "toxic pile of human refuse." She raised her chin in response to Esme's semi-tolerant eye-roll. "I'd be afraid the scent of her cheap perfume might rub off on me. Permanently."

"What did you tell Lauren?" I asked Edward, curious.

"I stared her down and told her not to make up such ridiculous stories - the latter part of which, I will note, she didn't listen to."

"Shoulda scared her better," Emmett rumbled. "Betcha _I_ could've shut her up." He gave me a smile that was half a baring of teeth. "I still will if our little cygnet wants me to."

It seemed that was going to be my nickname? I wondered if Emmett had nicknames for everyone.

"Are you kidding?" Alice trilled. "I wish I could show you the look on her face when Edward shows up to lunch arm-in-arm with Isobel tomorrow.

Edward smiled fondly at Alice, perhaps picking up on whatever she was seeing.

"So Laren approached Edward and was rebuffed," Esme said, "and then what?"

"Then she told my friend Jessica a whole pack of lies," I sighed. "Jessica knew a little bit of the truth about why Edward and I weren't speaking, at least initially. Even though Alice and I made her promise not to tell anyone about it, she decided that the best defense was a good offense. So _she_ started spreading some rumors of her own - mostly about Edward - "

"But a few she considered less-than-flattering about you," Edward murmured. "Her main goal was to deter Mike from pursuing you, and I don't think she cared whether it happened because we got back together or because he believed something that might disqualify you as a romantic interest."

"Like what?" I wondered.

He shifted uncomfortably. "She called into question your sexuality."

I gave a surprised snort of laughter. "Seriously? That's - pretty funny, actually."

"What an airhead," Alice scoffed. "Mike is too dumb to think anything other than 'girl on girl is _hot_.'"

Edward growled softly and wrapped his arm around my waist, drawing me closer.

"You're so _insecure_ ," Alice chided.

"Well," Emmett said, flashing us a suggestive grin, "you know they haven't - "

"Emmett!" Esme cut him off sharply.

"But it's - !"

Rosalie silenced him this time with something that was too fast for me to see, but made a sharp sound. "You have the manners of a gorilla," she sniffed.

He batted his eyelashes at her, completely unrepentant, but apparently ready to be directed into a different subject. "You gonna teach me better ones, baby?"

"No," she told him decisively.

"Awww…"

Edward was rubbing his forehead in irritated anxiety. "I'm sorry," he whispered to me.

I nodded, but I wasn't quite certain what he was apologizing for - and I wondered what Emmett meant when he said "we hadn't." We hadn't what? Was there some kind of vampire mating ritual? Did they drink each other's blood? Did they _have_ blood?

Ugh, where was I even coming up with this crap?

"Well," I sighed, deciding just to finish the explanation, "I couldn't really let Jessica say what she was saying about Edward, and I figured that if we were at least speaking it would shut down a lot of the rumors."

Edward kissed my hair. "I don't think we'll have much trouble shutting down _all_ the rumors," he told me.

"You are nauseating," Rosalie said, but her tone was suspiciously affectionate.

"Said the pot to the kettle," Jasper muttered.

Emmett put his arm around his mate. "Yeah, baby, we're a hundred times more nauseating than they are."

"Not usually considered a compliment, Em," Alice pointed out.

He just grinned at her, and then pulled Rosalie closer for a little enthusiastic PDA. In spite of Rosalie's earlier irritation, she seemed to participate very willingly.

Everyone else ignored them.

Since my reunion with Edward had been explained to Esme's satisfaction, the conversation moved on to more hobbies and some plans that had already been made and that would need to be restructured to accommodate my inclusion - which, going forward, was simply assumed to be part of the Cullen agenda. Alice also had a lot to say about my proposed bookshelf trip into Seattle with Edward.

"There and back in one day?" she piped incredulously. "You're going to be _exhausted_. You should stay the night and make a weekend of it!"

"Uh, Charlie would _not_ be okay with that," I pointed out.

"Well _yeah_ , if you two go _alone_ ," Alice replied, rolling her eyes at my obtuseness. "Obviously Esme and I will go to Seattle too."

"You will?" I asked.

"We will?" Esme echoed.

"Mmmm...hold on," Alice said, apparently scanning the future. "Yep! There are still tickets for the Pacific Northwest Ballet's matinee showing of Don Quixote. Esme and I will go to that, and then we'll have a reason to be there."

"Oh, _that_ sounds nice," Esme said.

"I'll buy them right now," Alice told her, whipping out her phone. "See?" she said to me. "He can't possible object to you and I having a sleepover, in a hotel that we'll pay for, with Esme as chaperone."

"You're taking a different car," Edward told her flatly.

She waved away his objection. "We probably won't go at the same time anyway, and it will be a lot more convenient to do our separate things if we have two cars. Ask Rose if you can borrow her truck."

"For bookshelves?" Rosalie scoffed. "You don't need a _truck_ for that - just take the Volvo."

"I already planned on it," Edward replied.

Alice shrugged. "Whatever. If I were taking _my_ mate shopping, I wouldn't let her get away with just some bookshelves, but - "

"Edward is _not_ buying me furniture," I said at the same time Edward said: "And what would Charlie Swan say to that?"

"Not everyone has your obsession with owning the newest, most up-to-date fashion in absolutely every area of their lives," he added.

"This will be fun," Esme said cheerfully, cutting through the jabs Edward and Alice were exchanging.

Alice looked up in sudden inspiration, fixing me with a stare that instantly gave me premonitory chills. "And you and I can go _shopping_!" she squealed.

"Uh - " I gulped, looking at Edward for help.

"Edward can come and help me decide what kinds of styles and colors look best on you," Alice said, effectively winning her brother over to her side.

He gave me a sheepish half-smile and shrugged. "That sounds like a good use of time," he agreed - the traitor. "After all, if Isobel is going to go to the next dance, you'll want to get started on her dress."

Ah, shit - I _had_ made that wager. I had managed to forget that Alice's obsession with dressing me up was connected to something I had done mostly because, at the time, it had seemed like a good way to get Edward's arms around me. Though, I mean, come to think of it - that goal still had definite potential as a silver lining. Of course he would hold me if I _asked_ , but I would overthink that for sure. If we were _dancing_ \- or, more likely, if _he_ were dancing while I struggled to remain upright - I might be too distracted to get flustered.

"Am I invited?" Esme asked.

"Of course!" Alice replied, clearly delighted to let everyone have a hand in tormenting me.

"Carlisle is coming," Edward said abruptly, interrupting Alice's plans for my weekend.

"Oh yeah, she hasn't met Carlisle yet," Emmett said.

"Well," I corrected, "I did _meet_ him when I went to the hospital after the accident, but that was pretty brief."

"Close enough," Emmett responded, waving away my correction.

No one, of course, needed to do anything so crass and _human_ as yell to Carlisle. When he opened the door, Edward simply said, in a normal speaking voice, "We're all in the living room with Isobel."

The handsome, incongruously young man I remembered from the hospital appeared a moment later. "I could tell you had brought her home," Carlisle told Edward as he entered the room. "The scent alone would have given it away." I stood as he approached me, and he offered his hand. "I'm pleased you're here, Isobel."

"Thanks," I replied as I accepted the handshake, suddenly feeling shy. Much like Esme, Carlisle was a _presence_ in the room - but his presence was less comforting and more dignified. Even so, I could see how he and Esme might be suitable for each other, in much the same way that Jasper and Alice fit together, and even Rosalie and Emmett - somehow - did the same. Or - I mean, it was still new, but I felt that same dynamic between myself and Edward, and had felt it even before I knew what to call it.

It was funny - so far I really hadn't seen much of the penchant for unhappiness that Alice seemed to imply was normal for mated vampires. I wondered if she had overstated the problem, or if the Cullens were simply exceptional.

Even given my extremely limited sample size, I was willing to believe they were exceptional.

Carlisle was in the middle of asking if there was anything he could get for me and offering to run to the store for it if necessary, when my phone interrupted. "Sorry, just a sec," I muttered, feeling rude but also entirely too aware that there were only about six people who were likely to call me: two of them were in the room, and, of the remaining four, two were my parents.

The caller was, as I had half-suspected, Charlie - and I gasped when I saw the time. "Oh my God, Dad, I'm so sorry," I said as I flipped the phone open, not even waiting until it was at my ear. "I'm at Edward's house and I just completely lost track of time," I went on before he could reply.

There was a moment of silence, long enough for my mind to start embroidering possibilities: he was angry, the whole police force was out looking for me, he thought I'd been killed...

Then he spoke, his voice calm with maybe just the slightest hint of amusement: "That's fine, Bells. I figured you were probably out with friends and just forgot to mention it. If you want to stay there for dinner, I'm sure I can find something here."

"No, you can't," I sighed, realizing that I actually _was_ hungry and, regardless of Carlisle's politeness, it was silly to ask a group of vampires to cook for me, and weird if I usurped their kitchen to cook for myself. "I got rid of all that frozen crap you had stashed in the freezer." (Seriously, did he even _know_ how much sodium was in that shit? Was he _trying_ to give himself high blood pressure?) "I'll come home and cook. I meant to anyway. Like I said - I just lost track of time."

"Well, if you want to," he said, his tone reluctant. "I could go to the diner…"

Because that was _so_ much better than a frozen dinner. "I'll be home in a few minutes," I promised.

I looked at Edward after I'd hung up. "Sorry," I told him.

"For what?" he asked. "I did promise you would be home before it got too late."

He had also promised that he would take me home when I wanted to go - which definitely wasn't now. But - I didn't want Charlie to eat at the damned diner (he had eaten there enough to last him a lifetime, or probably more than a lifetime) and I _did_ want to talk to him about Alice's altered plan for the Seattle trip. If there was one thing Charlie liked, it was time to think things over thoroughly before making up his mind - so regardless of what Alice said, I figured I had better let him know now.

Edward brought my coat and asked Alice to lend me a scarf so that I could cover my face better than I had on the way over. I said goodnight to everyone while she retrieved one, and then there was nothing left to do except leave. I followed Edward outside and cuddled up against him when he picked me up. He paused before taking off to look down into my barely-uncovered eyes. "I like this," he told me thoughtfully.

I nodded an agreement - and then we were flying through the forest, headed back to the school and Simone.

There was only one thing I wished altered as the wind and darkness spun an immensely private cocoon around the two of us: Edward's skin, though not quite mimicking the texture or rigidity of marble, nevertheless _looked_ like marble and was similarly cold. I had never given it much thought before this, but it suddenly struck me how intimate sharing body heat must be - a feeling no doubt honed by millenia upon millenia of evolutionary selection for pair bonding in humans. Edward had no body heat to share. Even though I hadn't ever had a boyfriend and didn't really know how it felt to cuddle up to a human guy, I still missed the physical warmth of another person on a level somewhere below consciousness. I wondered if Edward found my warmth similarly non-ideal.

Ah well - I supposed there were always going to be problems with what basically amounted to inter-species dating. It was probably a stupid thing to complain about, considering things like Edward's appearance, his scent, his strength and speed, his intelligence, his sense of humor, and the fact that he was, somehow, interested in plain, weird, apparently neurotic me.

Yeah...I could probably live without body heat.

I wondered if he would warm up if he spent like an afternoon out in the sun or something, though. Well - maybe not in Forks. And if it were hot enough for him to really warm up, maybe it would be more comfortable for me if he didn't.

Maybe I'd add it to my list of things that I should ask about at some point - at some point when we were getting along and there wasn't anything more pressing. Hopefully that time wouldn't be too long in coming.

All too soon, my musings were interrupted by our arrival at the high school. Edward set me on my feet carefully beside Simone, and I took a moment to pull back my hood and unwind the scarf Alice had let me borrow. Edward accepted it when I held it out to him, but then spent a few seconds staring at it, maybe prolonging the moment of parting for the night.

When he looked up, I realized that he was - at least in addition to the motive I had ascribed to him - uncertain how to proceed.

His eyes seemed to catch the faint and far-away light from the streetlamps scattered around the parking lot, their color unnaturally bright in the darkness. It should have been off-putting, maybe, but the expression in his gaze as he watched me was a warming combination of longing and concern. I had requested that Edward not get too close. Now he was trying to decide what that meant at this moment.

It was hard to know myself - but since I had made the request, it had to be up to me to define its dimensions.

Well - perhaps a little experimentation was in order. "Don't move," I told Edward. He went utterly, uncannily still as I stepped towards him. I reached up and let my fingers ghost across his face. I could feel him struggling to obey my command _precisely_ \- the sweet but very dense idiot - and not lean into my touch.

He went rigid as I rose up on my toes and brushed my lips against his, and his lips followed mine as he yearned toward me when I stumbled back a brief second later. Simone's cool bulk was, thankfully, there to catch me before I fell butt-first into a puddle. A small, frustrated sound somewhere between a whine and a whimper escaped Edward's throat - and then he, too, stepped backwards, his eyes closed and nostrils flaring as he fought for composure.

I watched him, willing my own heart rate to slow a little, wondering how our physical chemistry had managed to grow _more_ intense. Before - I hadn't really understood the degree to which his aloofness cooled things. Now -

Edward opened his eyes, fixing me with an unhappy look. "What?" I asked.

"Do you dislike it?" he muttered.

"Do I dislike - what?" I wondered, thinking that he couldn't possibly be asking what it sounded like he was asking.

"Do you dislike being near me?"

Nope - he really _was_ asking it. I thought I'd been clear earlier when I explained my ambivalence. "Of _course_ I don't dislike it," I replied. "If anything, I like it too much. So much it's frightening."

His expression didn't lighten. "So you're afraid of me. You don't trust me."

"I do trust you," I fired right back, getting annoyed. "I don't trust _me_."

And then I froze.

Those last four words seemed, for a moment, to echo in my skull like someone had just rung a gong. With my head.

I didn't _trust_ myself? Since - since _when_?

My arms wrapped themselves around my body as the meaning of what I had just said - not to mention the _truth_ of it - sank in. Edward, for better or worse, interpreted the gesture as a response to his comments, and I was too stunned to correct him.

He came forward and put his hands on my shoulders. "I'm sorry," he murmured. "I didn't mean to - I shouldn't have - call it...a moment of self-doubt."

I nodded, hardly hearing him. "It's fine," I said, uncertain whether I was addressing him or myself. "I'll see you tomorrow?" It came out as a question for some reason.

"I love you," he said.

His tone and the look of profound concern on his face shook me - a little - from my own preoccupation. Alice, I realized all in a flash, was right: Edward _was_ insecure. No matter what he knew about our status as mates, he didn't yet _feel_ it - probably because everything between us had been so volatile up until today. He needed reassurance. I grabbed his arm and tugged him down toward me so that I could kiss his cheek, shoving aside, for a moment, my own unease. "I love you, too, Edward - and I'll see you in the morning. You'll wait for me, right?" At least I could do that much. Edward shouldn't suffer for my stupid problems.

A smile touched his lips. "I'll wait for you," he promised.

Once I was alone in Simone's cab and headed home, though, my mind was immediately pulled back to the implications of what I'd said.

Since _when_ didn't I trust myself? I was confident, wasn't I? I mean -

Well, maybe I hadn't _really_ meant it, I thought. Maybe I had just been trying to avoid a conflict. That was reasonable. Edward and I had just _finished_ a really big conflict. Maybe I just wanted things to go smoothly for a while, and surely that was totally understandable.

I felt better for about half a second, until two separate realizations surfaced. First, if I didn't distrust myself, that implied it _was_ Edward I didn't trust, and that was just patently false. When it came to all this physical stuff that I basically knew nothing about, I trusted him to be decent and honorable - maybe more decent and honorable than I actually wanted him to be. Second, that rationalization I had just engaged in? That was the _opposite_ of asking myself how I felt. That was _telling_ myself how I _should_ feel, and then just assuming it was true - so basically what I had been doing most of my life that had made everything all wrong and fucked up to begin with.

I _hadn't_ just been saying it. It _was_ true.

" _Damn_ it," I muttered, pounding my fist lightly on Simone's steering wheel.

So the question was: why? Why didn't I trust myself with Edward?

Well - was it _just_ with Edward? Maybe - I mean - I had already acknowledged that I didn't really know how to deal with my feelings, right? So maybe lacking that skill just made me a little nervous _any_ time I was faced with some kind of powerful feeling, because my assumption had been for so long that I either had to act on it or bury it. I didn't know what else one _did_ with feelings.

Hmm. That probably worked up to a point - it was true that not knowing how to do things made me uneasy, but was it really true that I didn't know how to deal with _happy_ feelings? Hadn't Angela pointed out that I didn't bury those? What I felt with Edward was really a variant along the general spectrum of "happy" - maybe giddy, or something like that. I didn't usually have trouble expressing happiness.

So it was something else - at least partly. I couldn't quite figure out what, though - at least not during my short drive home. It was possible I needed to talk it out with Angela.

Unfortunately calling her had to wait once I got home. I had to make dinner, of course, but Charlie also informed me as I walked in the door that Jacob Black had called with the intent of delivering messages from his sisters or something like that. "He thought you might like to hear about what they're doing now, but didn't have your cell number. His is on the pad by the phone."

"Thanks, Dad. I'll call him back right now," I told Charlie, figuring I could get the conversation out of the way while I was cooking. It wasn't like I would feel comfortable talking to Angela with Charlie right there anyway. Maybe there would be time after dinner - or maybe tomorrow after school...well, Edward would probably want to spend every available moment with me, but maybe I could come up with some reason to leave early. I would think it over.

"Did you have fun with the Cullens?" Charlie asked.

I nodded, pushing my thoughts aside. "They're pretty great. Edward, by the way, is going to Seattle with me - and Alice got involved...well, I'll tell you about Alice's plans over dinner, okay?"

"Sure," Charlie agreed easily - probably more easily that he would have if he'd had any hint as to what Alice intended.

I went to the kitchen and pulled out a couple of relatively thin fish fillets from Charlie's copious collection in the freezer, drizzled some oil in a pan, turned the stove on low, and put them in to cook before dialing Jacob's number.

He picked up almost immediately. "Hello?"

"Hey, Jake, it's Isobel," I said, opening the refrigerator again to pull out some mayonnaise and lemon juice. Hopefully Charlie hadn't thrown out the dried dill that I'd bought last time I stayed here.

"Hey, Isobel! Thanks for calling me back." Jake sounded a little unreasonably excited by such a simple gesture, but I didn't comment, uncertain whether we were close enough for teasing like that to work.

The dill was pretty much exactly where I'd left it, calling into question whether Charlie had even opened that cupboard since my last visit. "No problem, and now you've got my number," I told Jake as I pulled out a spoon and a small dish for mixing up my lemon and dill mayo, which, even with dried dill, was a great accompaniment for a fish sandwich. "Charlie said you had messages from your sisters for me?"

On the other end of the line, he laughed. "Not really for _you_ \- mostly the message was for me, and it was 'why were you too focused on a stupid football game to ask Isobel more about what she's been up to, you dumbass?'"

I chuckled, feeling my mood lighten as I combined ingredients.

"So I was thinking that maybe we could hang out and catch up a little - that way I'll have something to tell them, and I'm sure you'll want to hear about what they're doing now."

"Yeah, that sounds great," I agreed instantly. Rachel and Rebecca were two years older than me, which, given that Charlie had also mentioned them 'getting out,' no doubt meant they were in college. I wondered if they had both gone to University of Washington, or what. "I'm a little busy this weekend - "

"Maybe tomorrow afternoon?" Jake offered.

"That's - actually perfect," I agreed. My "something" to get some time away from Edward to think - hopefully without hurting his feelings - had just presented itself. "Do you want me to drive over to La Push, or - "

"I'll come to you," Jake said hastily - a little _too_ hastily.

"Everything okay over there?" I asked before I quite remembered that I might not know him well enough to say something like _that_ , either.

"It's fine," he sighed. "Just some tribal crap. I'll tell you about it tomorrow if you really want to know, but it's not that big a deal. Just annoying." His voice changed, becoming lighter. "Is three okay?"

"Yeah. Cafe?"

"Yeah," he echoed. "Awesome! Well, I'll see you then."

"See you," I agreed. "Bye, Jake."

We hung up and I went back to cooking, slicing up an onion to grill, repurposing some romaine from my lunch sandwiches for a salad, slicing cucumbers so it wouldn't just be lettuce, grilling buns, and then putting everything together with enough ranch dressing on Charlie's salad to make him likely to eat it.

There was one flaw, I thought as I worked, in my plan for getting alone time - or alone-ish time, possibly interrupted by a long talk with Angela. Edward didn't like Jacob, and might try to insist on joining us.

Which wasn't going to happen.

Oh well - I'd cross that bridge when I got to it. His objections were bound to be unreasonable and based entirely in unfounded jealousy, so, you know, maybe better to have it out sooner rather than later. I wasn't giving up friends - especially old family friends - just because I had somehow or other gained a mate, and I wasn't squandering a perfectly good opportunity to get some time alone, either.

It was kind of a hard position to be in. If I tried to explain what I thought I needed to think about to Edward, he might very well decide it was somehow about him. He seemed to be inclined to do that anyway. If I asked for time alone, he would almost _certainly_ think it was about him. But if he figured out that I was avoiding him, he would beyond any possibility of doubt be hurt by _that_.

Maybe I should talk to Alice about it. She might be able to offer some insight - or at least tell me how to break it to Edward gently that sometimes he was going to be too close to the heart of my problems to help me with them. Hell - maybe she could give me a clue about whether or not Edward actually _could_ help me out with this one. I would take any clues I could get right now.

I set dinner out on the table and called Charlie.

He grunted appreciatively when he saw what I had made. "Better than a frozen dinner, right?" I prodded.

"That wasn't really the question, Bells," he replied, picking up his sandwich and taking a big bite. "You and Jake meeting up?"

And this was why I hadn't wanted to talk to Angela - too easy to overhear, especially when one had to speak loudly enough to be heard across a phone line. I nodded in answer to his question as I took a bite of my own dinner, and then chewed and swallowed before answering more completely. "Tomorrow after school. I need to remember to get his sisters' numbers. Maybe I could go see them if they're still local."

"Rachel is a UDub," Charlie told me, "but Rebecca got a sizable volleyball scholarship to University of Hawaii. Sounds like she's doing well there. I'm sure Jake can tell you more about it."

"That's cool," I said. Rebecca _had_ always been very athletic, though, at the same time, she had always reminded me a bit of Renee - constantly painting, sculpting or in some other way making something.

"Tell me about Alice's plans for Seattle," Charlie said around a bite of his sandwich.

Right. "Well, it turns out she and Esme have tickets to the ballet Saturday and are going to Seattle, too. She wants us all to spend the night there together."

Charlie froze.

I realized that my phrasing had maybe implied the wrong thing, and found myself chuckling at his horrified expression. "In a _hotel_ , Dad - you know, me and Alice having a sleepover in one room with Edward and his mom sharing another or getting separate rooms or whatever."

Charlie and my mom were not on the same page about this particular aspect of my upbringing at _all_. I somehow doubted they had ever even spoken about it. Part of my mom's preparations for my move had included a box of condoms - not because she thought I was going around having sex, but because she worried that I had somehow imbibed the kind of sex-negative thinking she had grown up with from somewhere (where wasn't clear). She fretted over the fact that I wasn't dating - had even sent me some statistics showing that it wasn't at all abnormal for adolescents my age to begin exploring their sexuality. The condoms were her way of letting me know that she wouldn't think it was strange or wrong if I wanted to start experimenting, just as long as I was safe about it.

And that was - well, it wasn't _bad_ , exactly. It was just -

It was just that she was so focused on being a cheerleader, that it made it a little hard to talk about any reservations I might have.

 _Harder_ , I mean. It wasn't like talking about sex, especially with a parent, was ever _easy_.

I poked at my salad with my fork, my amusement at Charlie's embarrassment fading. At first, when Edward had come over a couple of weeks ago, I'd just been annoyed that Charlie didn't believe, like my mom, that I could figure out what I wanted and act on it for myself. But now his fears about what I might do with Edward seemed almost like some kind of mockery of my own sense of - ugh - powerlessness? Lack of control? Whatever it was that had made me freak out whenever Edward and I got close today. "Dad," I said quietly, "even if Edward and I aren't sharing a room at a hotel overnight, you know we're sharing a _car_ , right? Just the two of us? For like two hundred miles _each way_?"

Charlie looked at me, his brow furrowed in confusion, apparently not catching my point at all.

Really? "People _have sex_ in cars," I elaborated, exasperated.

He choked and went instantly crimson. " _Isobel_ ," he gasped, "you're _not_ \- "

"No, I'm _not_ ," I agreed, cutting him off, "but not because Edward and I aren't sharing a room, and not even because you disapprove. I'm _not_ because - because - "

And that was sort of where I got lost.

"Because I know I'm not ready," I finished. _How_ I knew, _why_ I wasn't ready, whether vampires even _had_ sex - I didn't know any of that. All I had was the conclusion, which so far wasn't yielding much to my attempts at reverse-engineering it.

Charlie coughed a few more times and then took a drink of water while I waited. When he had finished, he leveled a thoughtful look at me. "You're telling me that I've been overbearing," he said.

"Ummm - well, maybe a little," I admitted. "But - " I shook my head, unable to put into words what I was really trying to say.

"The problem with teenagers," Charlie told me, casting his eyes toward the ceiling, "is that almost all of them are halfway sensible at least a third of the time, but no two are ever sensible in exactly the same way." He lowered his gaze to me again. "And that goes at least double for you, because you're _smart_ but not _experienced_. It's hard to know where you'll reason your way through okay, and where that experience really is necessary."

"Yeah, that's probably fair," I agreed, thinking of my recent revelations about feelings. A lack of experience had really hurt me there. "But that's - not where I was going with that."

"Are you sure," Charlie asked quietly, "that this isn't a conversation you'd rather have with your mother?"

I glanced up at him, trying to untangle the meaning behind his words. It sounded almost like he was trying to tell me that this was too embarrassing, but there was a rawness in his tone that made me think - maybe not? That maybe - he wanted me to bring something like this to him? I hoped so, because I didn't think I could avoid embarrassing him in talking about it - and I didn't think it was the kind of thing I could bring to Renee at _all_. "I'm sure," I said - and almost added "is that okay?" but didn't think he would give me a straight answer, even if it wasn't.

"You remember when I went out with Tyler?" I asked, groping for a way to begin expressing to him something that I couldn't even really express to myself.

"I do seem to recall that, yes," he replied dryly.

"Well - I didn't want Tyler, and he wanted me, and he didn't ask first, and that was a problem. I wouldn't ever let someone pressure me into having sex, not even someone I liked, and definitely not someone I _didn't_ like - like that."

"Right," Charlie agreed as though this was all perfectly obvious. Maybe it was.

"But I _do_ like Edward, and he's _not_ pressuring me, and I _do_ want him, but every time we get close I get this overwhelming feeling that something isn't right - that somehow something is going to be irrevocable, that if we start we won't stop and that it's - not _bad_ , I guess, but _dangerous_. And not like emotionally dangerous, but like _dangerous_ dangerous - like I might really lose something - I don't - I don't know - something _real_ \- and I won't be able to stop it, even though of course I could stop it if I wanted to, but maybe I wouldn't want to - "

"Isobel," Charlie said, cutting off my babbling. My mouth snapped shut and I felt my eyes widen as I reflected on everything that had just come pouring out. My dad and I stared across the table at each other for a long moment, and then he dropped his eyes and smoothed his mustache. "I think I understand what you're saying."

He did? How? _I_ didn't understand what I was saying.

"The thing you have to realize - " he began, and then paused. "Bells, dealing with - er - _attraction_ \- doesn't get easier. I mean - when you're part of a stable relationship, you fall into routines and some of the - the heat dies down to a simmer for a pretty good portion of the time. But when it flares up again, it's not any less intense or less overwhelming. You can't - ease yourself into taking control of it. You don't control it. The only way to control it is to step away entirely. And - I guess that gets easier as you get older and some of the hormones ease off, but that's not going to help you right now."

I bit my lip, wondering what kind of advice he was even offering me. "How do you know any of this?" I blurted out. Had the relationship between my parents _ever_ been "stable"?

"This may surprise you," he told me dryly, "but I dated before I met Renee. And we _were_ together - really together - for more than three years. It's not long when looking at an entire life, but it's long enough."

"But - " I began, trying to put my potential objection into words. "You - you might know how to do stable, but - does Renee? Stability isn't really - I mean - "

Charlie rose, and for a brief second of panic I thought he was going to refuse to answer - was just going to leave the room - but then he spoke: "Come here - neither of us feels much like eating now. Maybe these are questions I should have answered years ago, without making you ask." He gestured toward the living room.

"Why didn't you?" I wondered as I got up.

He waited until we were settled on the couch to answer. "I thought it would be better for you," he told me. "The thing is, Bells, young kids don't understand how different perspectives can all be true at the same time, and I didn't know what Renee told you, or intended to tell you. I didn't want you to be put in a position where you felt forced to judge one of your parents to be a liar. And then - by the time you were old enough to understand, the silence just seemed easier. I didn't even know if you _wanted_ to know."

"Renee never explained much of anything," I told him. "Just...the happy things."

One side of his mustache twitched. "There were a surprising number of happy things."

I waited, the unspoken question hanging in the air between us: so what happened?

"I've had a long time to think about it," he reflected, turning his head to stare into the now-empty dining room. "It probably won't come as a surprise to you to find out that Renee and I are very different."

" _No_ ," I replied sarcastically.

His mustache twitched again. "It worked for us at first. She needed stability and I needed freedom. Where we couldn't avoid conflict, we both worked hard at compromising."

"And then?" I prompted when he didn't immediately continue.

"And then she got pregnant," he said slowly. "Understand, Bells," he added quickly, "I'm not saying - "

"That it's my fault," I finished for him, rolling my eyes. "I know that, Dad. How could it be my fault?"

"Not just that," Charlie muttered, and then gave me one of the penetrating looks he usually reserved for speeders and misbehaving adolescents. "You have never been a mistake to me."

"I know that, too, Dad," I told him softly, hoping I wasn't about to start crying.

"Good," he grunted. "Renee and I were young and unprepared to be parents, and we both made mistakes - and those are our own fault. I thought being a father meant getting serious about - hmm - everything. She - well, I don't know exactly, but I can make a guess. She didn't want to be her own mother."

I nodded.

"The harder I pushed her to settle down and give up her own dreams and desires in order to be practical - whatever I even meant by that - the more trapped she felt. The more I boxed her in, the more she tried to escape by blowing off me and everything else. The more flighty she acted, the harder I pushed. It finally all ended the night that I accused her of being a bad mother. She had been doing some of that craft stuff she's always liked, and you hit your head pretty good on the corner of a table. I blamed it on her for not watching you more closely. She walked out, and took you with her."

There was a short, tense silence as I digested that. Renee hadn't ever told me what the precise catalyst for her exit had been. "Well," I joked at last, not quite sure how else to respond, "I suppose that explains what's wrong with me: too many hits to the head."

Charlie didn't laugh. "There's nothing wrong with you, Bells, and I was wrong about Renee. She may be unconventional...but every time I see you, it strikes me - forcefully - that you have never for a moment doubted you were loved. You have never been told you're incapable of anything. I realize now that if a parent can manage those two things, they're doing a pretty damned good job - even if they mess up some other stuff."

"You had a part in that, too, Dad," I reminded him. I hadn't ever doubted _either_ of my parents loved me - and in some ways Charlie had been more supportive of whatever I wanted to do than my mom had been. He was capable of coming up with practical suggestions for getting where I wanted to go. She was always enthusiastic, but generally I had to do the grunt work of figuring out how to accomplish whatever-it-was all alone.

He rubbed his neck uncomfortably. "Well, I suppose. The point of all this, I guess, is that you mom and I made our mistakes. Maybe if we'd been older, we would have known how to be - more understanding of each other, I guess. But - I don't regret any of it. Not - not when you're the result."

My eyes _did_ fill with tears at that - maybe because I knew Charlie still missed Renee and still wished that things had turned out differently between them. Though - now that I knew more of the story, I thought maybe he regretted hurting her - and regretted losing the chance to make it right - more than he still actively loved her. I could see how losing that chance might have set him up to keep other women at a distance. Somehow, in spite of all his reflection on the subject, he didn't fully trust himself not to do it again. "Thanks, Dad," I managed to choke out.

He nodded, his eyes averted, giving me time to collect myself.

"Well," I said, taking a deep breath, "I guess I had better microwave our sandwiches. Fish isn't much good cold. Unless it's sushi."

It was an obvious ploy to lighten the subject, but Charlie played along and grimaced, seemingly relieved to let go of the heavy stuff. "Never tried it."

"Really?" I asked, getting up from the couch - though his lack of experience didn't really surprise me. Not like anyone sold sushi in Forks. "I should take you sometime. I'll bet Seattle has really good sushi. It was sometimes hard to find stuff that wasn't pretty dodgy in Arizona."

"Pass," he replied. "Seems...slimy."

"You should at least _try_ it - especially with how much you love fish. It's just a different preparation."

"It's not a preparation at all," he argued. "Preparation involves cooking."

"That's not true. Salad is a preparation of lettuce. Preparation is anything you do to change a thing from its natural state," I argued right back.

"Lettuce hardly even counts as food," he groused, returning to the table as I retrieved our plates.

We ended our meal arguing about food, though I knew neither of us had forgotten our earlier conversation. I counted as progress the fact that we had had it at all.

What it meant - I was less certain of. It hadn't really answered any of my immediate questions, but I still felt like I had been handed an important part of my past - maybe even one that held a key, somewhere within it, to my present.


	45. Chapter 44

Note: I skipped my classes today _just for you_ , so that I could get this posted.

Okay, so that's not actually true. My second class was a dumb "professor is off to a conference, so here's a librarian to teach you how to use scholarly databases for the millionth time in your college career, and, oh yeah, did we mention this is a 300-level English course that no one could possibly have passed enough classes to get into without knowing how to do research?" My first class doesn't actually count attendance, so it seemed like a waste to go in.

Finishing and editing this took a lot longer than expected, though. I definitely put off two papers I should be writing to get it up. I need some way to force myself to write shorter chapters.

* * *

XLIV.

Isobel looked solemnly lost in thought as she climbed down from her decrepit truck, and I found myself instantly wondering what could be wrong - and, more, what I had _done_ wrong. I still didn't entirely believe, in my unguarded moments, that we had reached a mutual understanding. How could I possibly know what she had been thinking about overnight? Perhaps she had found something more to take issue with in my moment of self doubt the night before.

Then she looked up and saw me approaching - and her face lit with a smile.

I exhaled a sigh of relief.

Isobel was a little earlier than usual, which I hoped indicated she was eager to see me - a hope which seemed validated when she threw her arms around my neck a moment later. Her open display of affection made a pleasing contrast to our goodbye the previous evening.

"I missed you," she mumbled into my shirt.

"I missed you, too," I assured her. At least, I thought, she had been able to pass some of her time sleeping, though I didn't say so - there was no reason to turn it into a competition. Besides, I didn't know whether I envied her the ability to sleep, or hated it that I would always, no matter how close we grew, lose nearly a third of each day to her human need for periodic unconsciousness.

"Hey," she sighed, breaking into my thoughts, "can I ask you something dumb?" She glanced up at me before looking away just as quickly, hiding her face once more against my chest.

Something _dumb_? Unease gripped me again, and I wondered what she was thinking. "Nothing you could ask me - " I began.

"Don't say that until you've heard it," she interrupted, releasing me with one hand to rub her forehead. She took a deep breath. "I just want you to know that _I_ know it's a dumb question, because - well - I - I mean, the thing is, you're not...planning to _go_ anywhere, are you?"

The phrasing was a little unclear, but I took her meaning perfectly. Guilt stabbed through me as my thoughts flitted back to my original intention to get as far away from her as possible - and my confession of that intention the day before. Maybe my instinctive distrust of the strength of our understanding was nothing to be wondered at - our present might be working, but we still had to navigate the mistakes we had both made in the past, as well as the question that I, at least, could see looming in the near future: would Isobel remain human or join me in undeath?

I brought my fingers up to rest against her jaw - her skin, while still warmer than me, was a few degrees cooler than usual thanks to the cold air - and tilted her face up so that she would look at me. Droplets of misty rain caught on her eyelashes, making her blink. "I am _so_ sorry I ever thought that leaving you was a solution to anything," I told her. "I'm _here_ , Isobel. There is nothing that will ever make me willingly leave you again."

She nodded, but her eyes drifted away from mine.

"Does that help?" I pressed.

"Not really," she sighed. "But don't feel bad. I - look, can we talk about this, like," she waved toward the covered area just outside the gym, "over there?"

I released her, but offered my arm, which she took willingly. "Charlie and I had a long - long- _ish_ \- long for _us_ \- talk last night," she told me as we crossed the parking lot. "And it - well, thinking about it afterward - clarified a few things for me. Not everything, but a few things."

"Oh?" I replied, trying to decide whether that sounded hopeful or not.

We made it to the covered area before she spoke again. "You know how Alice teased you yesterday about being insecure?"

Well - Alice's motive hadn't been _teasing_ so much as _criticism_ , but I took her point and nodded.

"It's true for me, too, just about different things." She turned to face me, shoving her hands into her pockets and avoiding my eyes. "You have this completely unfounded fear that - I mean, really, I don't know what it is you're afraid of. You already _know_ you're the only person I want and am ever likely to want, but you still the urge to intervene any time you think a guy is looking me over. Right?"

It was my turn to avoid her gaze as I nodded.

"Meanwhile I have a totally irrational fear that you're going to - to take off. Or - and this one _really_ doesn't make sense - that something is going to induce _me_ to take off." She sighed. "I actually had some nightmares about that while we weren't speaking."

"So what does this mean?" I asked, finally finding my voice.

"Nothing," she said with a shrug. "I mean - nothing earth-shattering. It's just - maybe something good to know about each other? So we can be more sympathetic? I hope it will get better for both of us as time goes on." She gave a humorless little laugh. "I sort of hoped that hearing you deny any plans to abandon me would make me feel better, but I'm not sure it's the kind of thing words will fix."

Oh. Well that was - not what I was expecting. It was very - lacking in drama. I reached for her.

She stepped back, avoiding my attempt to pull her against me again. "Um, that said..." Her face scrunched up. "I kinda made plans to have coffee with Jake this afternoon and catch up, and...I'm kind of not inviting you."

" _Isobel_ ," I groaned, letting my arms drop. " _Him_?"

"Yes, _him_ ," she replied patiently. "Look - I know you would be happier if you came along, and next time I _will_ invite you. But try to understand: if you were there, it would be _incredibly_ rude for Jake and me to just go on and on about all the things we did together when we were children and all the people we used to know."

"I don't _care_ ," I growled. "Human politeness means very little to me."

"It means something to _us_ , though," she fired right back, "and it's not like I can tell Jake, 'Oh, don't worry about Edward - he doesn't care about the rules of polite behavior because he's _not human_.'"

That - she did, perhaps, have a _small_ point.

"All Jake and I have right now is our past because it's been so long since we saw each other. I _want_ you two to be friends - I just have to reestablish my friendship with him first."

I muttered something unflattering about her _friend_ that she - thankfully - probably couldn't decipher. Friendship between us was unlikely. Whether Jacob Black realized it or not, he knew what I was, and getting too close to him would be dangerous for me and for my family.

Isobel reached out and took my hand. "It's a couple of hours in a public place. I sympathize with your jealousy, but I can guarantee you'll survive. Also, if it makes you feel any better: Charlie would _not_ approve if I were ever crazy enough to choose Jake over you. Which I wouldn't do. Because that would be crazy."

Later, knowing that Charlie Swan thought me more worthy of his lovely daughter than Jacob Black probably _would_ be a source of great satisfaction, but for now...I just didn't want her to go.

On the other hand, though, some small, still-human part of my mind was busy lecturing me about fairness. It wasn't right for me to dictate to Isobel whom she could and couldn't be friends with, no matter the possible risk to me. Moreover, I doubted she would _let_ me dictate something so unjust. Trying would drive her away much faster than any coffee date with any old friend, no matter whom he might be.

"Can I check in on you?" I asked, grudgingly accepting the fact that this _was_ happening, and, more, that she was _probably_ right about the stultifying effect my presence would have on the conversation.

"Yes," she agreed more easily than I had expected. "Just not in Jake's thoughts."

"Why?" I demanded, suddenly suspicious again.

"Because," she sighed, "I can't guarantee he won't be thinking admiring things - he's a _boy_ , Edward, and quite possibly totally girl-crazy. As long as he keeps it to himself, it's not really your business _or_ mine, but we both know that once you know, you'll hold it against him indefinitely. So - just avoid knowing."

I stared at her for a beat as two sets of very different desires tugged at me.

"I want you to be _friends_ ," she stressed again.

"Alright," I grumbled, hoping silently that she wasn't _too_ attached to that idea.

She broke out in a huge smile and threw her arms around me for the second time that morning. "I love you."

For a moment I struggled to maintain my irritation, but - ah, her body felt good pressed against mine. And, I reasoned, she hadn't put any time limits on my eavesdropping. I could monitor the entire conversation if I wanted to - which I probably did. Her omission reassured me that she truly didn't care if I heard what they talked about - it was just my physical presence that would make social interaction awkward. "I love you," I replied, pressing my face to her hair.

"I have an hour or so to kill after school. Feel like _actually_ filling me in on what I missed in Spanish?"

I _felt_ like pushing her into the nearest wall and kissing her senseless, but that was inadvisable for too many reasons to name, not the least of which was her own recent ambivalence. "Charlie might like me a little less if I let you fail a class," I reasoned.

"Probably not," she reassured me. "But he might ground me to make sure I have more time for studying."

"Hmm," I sighed, letting it emerge as a low growl. Isobel shivered and pressed herself more tightly against me. "I'm not entirely certain that would be good for me, either. I suppose I had better help you."

"I can work with enlightened self-interest," she squeaked.

I paused, surprised, and bent to look at her face. "You - I didn't frighten you did I?"

The bell for the end of second period rang, momentarily cutting off her answer, but she was blushing as she pulled away from me. "Um, no," she said, turning away, as it became quiet enough to be heard again.

"Isobel - "

She glanced back at me, her cheeks still red. "I need to go to my locker. Are you walking me to class or what?"

That was easily answered. I flitted to her side faster than was strictly advisable, though there was no one around just yet to see me, and wrapped my arm firmly around her waist.

Classroom doors opened a few seconds later, hemorrhaging students, and my renewed friendliness with Isobel did not escape notice. She didn't seem to observe our observers, but I couldn't mimic her ignorance. A vampire among humans could never entirely blend in, and it had always been worse for me both because I had no mate to deter female interest and because my ability to read minds made it more difficult for me to overlook the obnoxious intentions and desires of the humans around me. In the last six months, I had finally managed to convince nearly everyone that I wasn't worth wasting any fine feelings on, and had gained a measure of peace.

Now the thoughts of the adolescents in my immediate vicinity were once again on me - crawling over me, probing for some clue about my motives and how my actions might be turned to the benefit of each individual spectator. Some of the thoughts belonged to those who wanted me, and that was unpleasant. But some belonged to those who wanted _Isobel_ , and _that_ was utterly infuriating.

Other people really were hell.

But, I thought, staring down at Isobel, it turned out people - or the right person - could also be heaven. Isobel's eyes were bright as she let me know that Charlie had approved our overnight trip to Seattle this morning. Her smile and blush were enticing as she asked if I wanted to do anything together Friday night. Her enthusiasm as we made plans for her to come over was infectious. She was the only heaven I wanted.

We paused outside her classroom. "You could just come in with me," she half-joked, her face lifted temptingly. "I doubt Mr. Varner would even notice."

If only that were true, I thought, but didn't say so - I was too busy trying to convince myself to step away. In spite of her inviting posture, Isobel hadn't asked to be kissed. Besides, the reason I wanted to kiss her so badly was partly influenced by all the thoughts of our male classmates. That was probably wrong. Just - a desire to stake my claim visibly.

Which was - wrong.

Definitely wrong.

I bent and kissed her.

It was a light kiss and only a shade longer than the one she had given me the night before. Better, I thought, to remain within the boundaries she had set through her own actions.

It was long enough, though, for Isobel's hand to tangle itself in my shirt, reassuring me that I hadn't crossed any lines in acting on my impulse. As though to further confirm that conclusion, her eyes were glazed when I pulled away. She blinked a few times as though trying to regain her scattered thoughts, but the only comment she managed to come up with was an inarticulate "uh."

I tried to swallow my grin, but felt it stretching my face anyway. "See you in an hour," I told her in a tone that could probably only be described at _satisfied_. It seemed I didn't need any walls to kiss her senseless - and that was an advantage, because if she had really been looking at me or listening to the way I sounded, I had no doubt she would have felt the need to use her clever tongue to deflate my ego.

Which - was a more sexually-charged way of describing her quick wit than I had intended. Better to keep my mind _away_ from all the ways in which Isobel's tongue might turn out to be clever. Not only were such thoughts ungentlemanly, but I had no feasible way to - to pursue them, and there was no sense in torturing myself.

Isobel's fingers had just started to loosen their grip on my shirt, when her eyes suddenly lit and she tightened her hold once more, pulling me back toward her. I hesitated briefly as I caught a pair of familiar minds approaching, but decided just as quickly that if Isobel didn't care enough to pay attention to whether or not Jessica and Mike might be within sight, there was no reason for me to care. Mike was quite likely the worst of the boys I wanted to scare off, and, upon further consideration, it would be far more instructive for him to see _Isobel_ kissing _me_ than the other way around.

He and Jessica rounded the corner just in time to see the entire thing, but I was beyond caring the moment Isobel's lips touched mine. I had, without even fully understanding it, missed this eagerness from her. There was nothing else that could make me believe so thoroughly that she did indeed love me.

She pushed me away an all-to-brief moment later - unfortunate, but, I could tell, more because she was afraid of getting entirely wrapped up in our kiss than because she wanted it to end. Her cheeks were bright red and she couldn't help smiling any more than I could, but she still poked her finger at my chest. "You are _such_ a jerk. How the hell am I supposed to concentrate on the most boring class in the entire world _now_?"

Her words and aggrieved tone were so completely at odds with her expression that I felt compelled to laugh at her. "You're smart enough to think of something," I told her, conscious of Jessica's awed gaze on me and Mike's equally frustrated one on Isobel. I forced myself to back up one step, and then a second. "I'll see you next period."

"Are you sure I can't convince you to come to this one with me?" she asked, her velvety gaze fixed on my face. This time I truly couldn't tell whether she was serious or not, which made me think that she might not be certain herself.

"No, I'm not sure," I replied, "but that's exactly why I'm leaving now." I backed up another step as I said it, though tearing myself away from her felt, at the moment, equal to any of the tasks of Hercules. "Imagine how distracted you would be if I were _in_ 'the most boring class in the entire world' with you."

She blushed and I wondered what it was she was imagining, finding new frustration in the fact that I couldn't simply pluck the answer from her thoughts.

It crossed my mind that there might be other ways to convince Isobel to tell me what she was thinking, especially if, for instance, she were dazed and dazzled with a few more kisses and a little charm. My fourth step backward faltered as I lost the will to pull myself away.

I was saved by Jessica's impatience - curse her. She rushed to Isobel's side, taking possession of her arm. Isobel startled, apparently unaware, up until that point, of Jessica's presence, and her blush deepened.

" _Isobel_ ," Jessica stage-whispered. "You _kissed_ him!"

I rolled my eyes.

Isobel's gaze flickered to me before focusing on Jessica. "Yes," she agreed at a normal volume, "that happened."

Jessica giggled, glanced at me and saw I was still watching them, blushed - but not anywhere near as prettily as Isobel - and quickly turned her face away, continuing the conversation in that same ridiculous stage-whisper: "This means you're back together! I'm so happy for you!"

The warning bell for third period rang, and I heaved a sigh. Isobel gave me a little wave and then turned away, Jessica in tow, as Jessica babbled some nonsense about never having seen me laugh before. Mike trailed after them as they made their way to the door of the classroom. Since there was nothing else for me to do there, I went to class.

Of course, my mind didn't have the same sort of restrictions that my body did. Isobel had told me previously that she didn't care very much if I listened in on her conversations at school, and I had the growing feeling that she cared less if I listened in now, period. It wasn't something I would do without consulting her first, but, for now, we were at school, her whispered conversation was already being witnessed by both Mike and Alice, and her conversation partner was Jessica, whose primary motivation was nosiness.

After a quick look at Mike's thoughts to make certain that they were as despondent as they should be - which they were - I chose Alice as my observation point. She caught every word with the ease expected of vampiric hearing and, additionally, kept directing thoughts my way once she realized, based on her view of the future, that I was listening.

Jessica was trying to drag details from Isobel regarding what it was like to kiss me, while Isobel tried to get away with vague and partial answers, or to deflect with humor or, twice, by pointing out that Alice was my sister and might not want to hear it. _Not that I care_ , Alice thought at me. _You must have done_ something _right, though. Isobel is glowing._

She was, too - and not because Jessica kept making her blush. Her lips, usually on the pouty side, curled up at the corners, softening the pensive look she often wore into something pleasantly dreamy.

I spent most of the period contemplating her rather than paying any particular attention to Jessica's questions. They weren't especially insightful, and Isobel was doing her best not to answer them anyway. There was nothing in their back-and-forth that I didn't already know or couldn't guess. A few minutes before the bell rang, I managed to escape and make my way to Isobel's classroom to wait for her, eliciting another smothered squeal from Jessica when she caught sight of me. Isobel, meanwhile, broke into an enormous smile.

The fake shutter-click sound made by Alice's phone interrupted whatever she would have said. "Adorable," Alice decided, passing the phone to Jessica for her opinion.

Isobel blushed.

"I'll send it to you," Alice promised her. "I'm sure your mom would _love_ a picture of you with Edward. I know Esme will love it."

"Um, my phone doesn't receive pictures," Isobel told her, her blush deepening.

"Then give me your email."

I dropped my arm over Isobel's shoulders while she obeyed, and then we headed, as a group, for the gym.

"What," I asked Isobel in an undertone, leaning over her to make sure that none of the humans around us would catch the question, "are the approximate chances that you would let me buy you a real phone?"

She was instantly glaring up at me. "Zero."

"That's what I thought," I sighed. She needed something capable of pulling up a _map_ at least. I would have to come up with an underhanded way of getting her a more functional bit of technology.

We parted in the hall that ran past the locker rooms, and I steeled myself for another hour without any meaningful contact with my Isobel.

Somehow I made it through - and only distracted Isobel enough to make her fall over in the middle of her aerobics once. When we met up again outside the gym, Jessica took one look at me and guessed: "You're not sitting with us today."

I looked at Isobel and shrugged. "By my count, you do owe me some lunch periods." It was true - according to our deal, we would alternate our table daily, and she had spent the entire week prior sitting with her friends.

"I'll sit with you," she replied to me.

"Well," Jessica sighed, "I guess I'll see you tomorrow."

"Yeah," Isobel agreed, her eyes still fixed on me. "Tomorrow."

I dropped my arm over her shoulders once more and steered her toward the cafeteria, noting that her hair was still damp from showering. Layered beneath her usual tantalizing aroma was a flowery accent - probably either shampoo or soap - and a hint of sweat, no doubt a testament to the fact that she had showered quickly. I had never been this close to her right after gym and I found the change in her scent interesting - intimate, somehow. And it was a marvel that I could note such changes so calmly, the burn in my throat a minor, barely-regarded distraction.

"You smell good," I murmured, pressing my face against her hair.

She looked up at me, one eyebrow raised, making me laugh.

"Even better than usual," I corrected myself. "Almost...good enough to eat," I added with just a hint of a growl.

"You bite me and I'll bite you right back," Isobel warned me, baring her supremely non-threatening teeth at me and poking her elbow into my side.

Her bravado drew another laugh from me.

"Don't count on your superior speed, strength, age and coordination to win anything for you," she admonished me. "None of those means much if you don't have control over one much more important aspect of a conflict."

"And what is that?" I asked, amused.

"The victory conditions," she replied, grinning up at me. "Think about it: you can't exactly win if I'm losing. So, really, when you think about it, _your_ speed and strength and so on are really _mine_."

I stopped walking and bent to press my forehead against hers. "I am entirely yours," I agreed.

Her eyes drifted closed as we simply stood there for a moment. I wondered how _I_ smelled to _her_ , since at this range even her limited human nose could undoubtedly pick up my scent. "I'm an idiot," she breathed.

I pulled back a little in surprise.

She opened her eyes again and cast them toward the sky. " _Why_ did I make plans with Jake tonight?"

Her dismay made me laugh again, and I pulled her closer. "You could cancel," I suggested, moving forward again and bringing her with me. The sigh she heaved in response told me that she didn't consider that to be a viable option. "Or - you know, it's just a couple hours in a public place. We'll probably _both_ survive. Especially if you call me afterward."

We reached the cafeteria before she could answer. I opened the door for her. "I have to go home and make dinner and...ugh...do homework and stuff," she said as I caught up to her again. "Would you mind if I put it off until just before I go to bed?"

Would I mind being the last thing she thought of before she drifted off? No - I thought I could live with that. "I don't mind," I assured her. "Now - what do you want to eat?"

Isobel picked out her lunch, and I paid mostly by virtue of the fact that I was the faster of the two of us at grabbing my wallet and had handed over the money before she could do anything about it.

We didn't just sit with Alice today. Isobel knew the whole family now, Rose was (more or less) behaving herself, and there was no reason for a continuation of the division between us. I triumphantly conducted Isobel to our usual table, seating her between myself and Alice, who was barely managing to contain her excitement.

Rose was studiously painting her nails with some concoction Alice had cooked up for her to try - normal products, much to the dismay of the girls, didn't stick to our "skin" or "nails" very well (or, for that matter, our hair, which was why mine never stayed in place, no matter what I tried to do with it) - but Emmett and Jasper both greeted Isobel. Jasper did it politely; Emmett, of course, bounced around like an enthusiastic puppy. He spent most of lunch interrogating her on her interests and trying to decide what she could do that we still needed. Alice offered up "chemist," but he rejected it as too dull. "We already have too many scientists," he told her dismissively.

That started an argument over whether engineers counted as scientists - Emmett, predictably, wanted to lump them together, while Alice was offended by the very suggestion - that grew heated enough to require Jasper's intervention. Isobel seemed entertained by it, though I felt compelled to step in a few times when both my siblings were demanding her support in carrying their points a little _too_ vehemently.

"So," I teased her as I carried her tray to the nearest trashcan, "when you aren't trying to be diplomatic, what's your _actual_ stance on the great engineer vs. scientist debate?"

"That's not a real question, right?" she replied. "Engineers have as much in common with scientists as crabs do with spiders. They may be the same phylum, but they aren't all that similar and I'm not likely to confuse them. I actually had to write an essay on Karl Popper for my first-ever college science course, which was really dumb because who the hell even assigns a paper in a biology class?"

I laughed and left her to head for my own "really dumb" biology class, which would have been much more lively had it included any philosophy of science at all.

Emmett caught me after biology as I was en route - much more cheerfully even than usual - for Spanish, pulling me off to one side of the path. I allowed him to do so only reluctantly - he was eating up time I could be spending with Isobel. "How late do you expect the Cygnet to stay tonight?" he asked.

"Isobel isn't coming over tonight," I told him, hearing a touch of impatience in my own voice.

His eyes widened in surprise, the question _why_ as obvious on his face as it was in his mind.

"She made plans for coffee with that family friend - Jacob Black."

Emmett's expression darkened, but then cleared again just as quickly. "Oh, so you'll be following her, then," he assumed with a quick nod. "That might work. Mind if I come along?"

Though I opened my mouth to set him straight, I found the idea growing on me before any words had a chance to emerge. Contrary to what Isobel assumed, I couldn't always simply tune people out. Then, too, minds I had actively touched were always easier to latch onto than those I had never sought contact with, meaning that Jacob would probably draw me more strongly than anyone else in the cafe. Besides that, there was no guarantee that anyone would be listening to Jacob and Isobel talk at any given moment, and my perception was bound to whatever the mind I was eavesdropping on was focused on, which made it more likely I would have to hop from mind to mind, and _that_ would make it even more difficult to avoid Jacob's. The whole thing was just more likely to go smoothly if I listened in physically. Though I didn't get sucked into minds unwillingly _very_ often, it did sometimes happen, and it was less likely if I was tuning out _all_ the thoughts in a given area rather than trying to focus selectively.

Isobel was right about this much: if Jacob Black was considering her in a romantic or sexual light and I happened to overhear, I would find it very difficult to forgive him. I _already_ found it difficult to forgive him, especially since I wasn't certain I wanted to.

"Why do you want to come?" I asked Emmett.

"I can't want to hang out with my brother?" he asked much too innocently - particularly given than I could read his intentions all too easily in his thoughts.

"That's none of your business," I growled, irritated by what I saw there.

"Like fuck," he replied calmly. "You made her part of the family. Face it, bro - you have a history of acting like a complete _ass_ when it comes to managing your attitudes about - _her_ \- but also - you know," he lowered his voice, "mates and _mating_ more generally. There's shit you might not have thought of, so stop being a prude and hear me out."

"I don't need a _sex talk_ from _you_ of all people," I hissed.

"Said the virgin," he scoffed, ending the argument before it could really get started by walking away. That did not, of course, mean that he had changed his mind - just decided that it wasn't worth arguing about when he could come up with some other way to force the conversation. Unfortunately he didn't have any immediate plans for _how_ he might do so, leaving me with no way to counter him.

There was also no way to avoid following after him, since we were, after all, headed for the same place.

I was on the wrong end of fate once again when Emmett's mind settled on a plan the moment he spotted Isobel in the classroom. Because I had let him go ahead, there was no way for me to stop him - at least short of revealing myself as completely unnatural or shouting for Isobel not to talk to him, which would have drawn too much attention.

"Hey, Cygnet," he boomed as he approached her. I caught the classroom door before it swung shut and tried to catch Isobel's eye as well, but her attention was on Angela.

"Signet?" Angela mouthed.

"Because my last name is 'Swan,'" Isobel whispered.

" _Ohhh_ ," Angela replied.

Isobel's eyes flickered briefly to me, but didn't rest long enough for me to make any meaningful gestures before continuing on to my brother. "Hey, Emmett."

"I hear you're not hanging out with us after school. What's up with that?" he demanded.

"I just made plans with a friend," she replied, "and then I have quite a bit of homework to do. But I'll come over tomorrow afternoon, so I'm sure I'll see you then."

Not if I had anything to say about it. Pulling myself together, I moved to join them.

"What time are you meeting your friend?" Emmett asked.

I shoved Emmett's shoulder with my own, which didn't faze him at all but did succeed in drawing Isobel's eyes my way. I shook my head subtly at her, unable to be more clear without being entirely _too_ obvious, which would both draw unwanted human attention _and_ run the risk of Emmett announcing to the entire class - and, more importantly, to Isobel - that I needed someone to give me a sex talk.

Her eyebrows only drew together in confusion, though. "Um...three?" she replied to my brother, her eyes fixed on me as she tried to decipher what I was trying to communicate.

"At the cafe here in town?" Emmett pressed.

" _Leave my mate alone, or I swear on everything you hold holy that I will_ end _you_ ," I muttered, low and fast, concealing the words within a growl.

Emmett flashed his cherubic grin at Isobel in response to my threat, dropping his arm over my shoulders. "Edward is trying to get out of hanging out with me because he's being all stupidly worried about you."

"That's not true!" I protested, shrugging off his arm as Isobel rolled her eyes.

"Just go hang out with Emmett," she told me. "You might not want to now, but I'm sure it will be more fun than waiting around for me to call."

I could guarantee it _wouldn't_ be more fun, but it was hard to call Emmett out for his lie when I didn't want Isobel to know the _real_ reason I was avoiding him. She and I hadn't even come close to discussing anything as serious - or difficult - as sex. Knowing her, she would treat it as frankly as her copious blushing allowed, and I wasn't entirely certain how I would deal with that - or if I would be able to.

"Yes, I'm just going to the cafe downtown," she told Emmett, "so Edward will be free pretty much right at three."

Emmett reached out and gently ruffled Isobel's hair as the warning bell rang. "Thanks, Cygnet," he told her, turning to saunter back to his usual seat.

I dropped into the empty seat behind Isobel's. "You have no idea how much you owe me for this," I grumbled.

"Whatever, Edward," she replied, exchanging an amused look with Angela.

I spent the period plotting Emmett's death.

After the final bell released us, Isobel and I both packed up our things in silence, broken only by a quick goodbye that Angela and Isobel exchanged. I wasn't quite certain whether she was upset with me - and I wasn't quite certain whether _I_ was upset with _her_. It was really all Emmett's fault, of course, but I was perhaps a little annoyed that Isobel had believed his lie.

Part of that might have been irritation at _myself_ for expressing opinions and generally behaving in ways that made his lie believable, though.

Isobel cast a single look back at me to make certain that I was following her before leading the way out the door. We hadn't discussed where we should study, but she had apparently given it some thought - she took me to the library.

The building appeared deserted as we entered - even the librarian was nowhere to be seen. "Perfect," Isobel muttered.

Before I could decide what she meant and whether or not she was being sarcastic, she pulled out a chair and pushed me down onto it - and then dropped herself onto my lap. Without any conscious direction, my arms found their way around her and I pulled her close. Thankfully my mind managed to catch up after a brief second, and I pulled her even closer, tucking her head carefully under my chin to make sure she wouldn't suddenly act on an impulse to kiss me. Her soft, warm little body, not just _pressed_ against me, but actually partially _on top_ of me, was almost too much of a very, very good thing. She had arranged us this way once before, but I had been in better control of myself then, still sick with dread over the confessions I knew I needed to make, and she hadn't tried to kiss me then, either.

"I thought we were going to study," I rasped.

"We can," she said. "But I thought - " She raised her head to look up at me. "I thought we had reached a compromise, but since you apparently aren't as okay with it as you seemed earlier, maybe we should spend our time doing something else. Like, you know - "

"Emmett lied to you," I interrupted hastily before she could go any further. Though I didn't know precisely what conclusion she was heading toward, I was having enough trouble maintaining my composure as it was. "He was trying to corner me into having a conversation I didn't want to have, because he knew I would follow you to wherever you were meeting Jacob Black and wouldn't leave you there alone. So all he needed to do to trap me was figure out where and when your meeting was occurring."

She sat up abruptly, her brows drawing together. "Why did you let him get away with that? And what kind of conversation is it? And - no, wait, start with this one - _why_ are you following me and Jake?"

I started with the last question, as requested. "Primarily because it will be easier for me to listen in physically than it would be through minds other than Jacob's," I answered truthfully enough, but I realized as I spoke that it was only part of the truth. I reached up to touch Isobel's face lightly. "Secondarily - while I trust you not to hurt me, I don't trust anyone in the world other than perhaps your father not to hurt _you_. I don't want to be six miles away if Jacob Black unexpectedly turns out to have multiple personalities, and one of them happens to be a serial killer."

Isobel rolled her eyes. "Edward…"

"I know it's absurd," I told her, feeling a rueful smile pulling at my mouth. "You make me completely, utterly absurd. I'm sorry."

She sighed, but didn't argue. "Okay, so what is this conversation you're trying not to have?"

"Pass," I replied after a moment of thought, unable to come up with a way to explain without explaining.

One of her eyebrows went up. "'Pass'?"

"Pass," I agreed.

"Since when is _passing_ allowed?" she demanded.

"No one ever said it wasn't," I pointed out lightly.

She didn't smile. Instead her eyes slid away from mine and I could see that my evasion had hurt her.

Damn. Refusing to answer had seemed worth a try, but I hadn't meant to hurt her. One of my hands buried itself in my hair. "Emmett is trying to force a conversation whose timing should be entirely between the two of us," I told her slowly, choosing my words with care. "It's something we'll need to address eventually, but, like many things, my - situation - is complicated, and I'm not certain how to talk about it safely yet. That's the reason I didn't call out Emmett's lie in class. I didn't want to give him an excuse to force the issue by telling you about it."

"Oh…" she said, her tone still reserved.

"Isobel - " I began, wondering how to make her understand.

"No," she cut me off briskly, "it's fine. I'm - it's actually kind of hypocritical for me to be upset about that. I've been thinking about something that I'm not ready to talk to you about, either, and am probably going to bounce some thoughts off of Angela before I _am_ ready to bring it up."

"Oh," I echoed, trying to decide how I felt about that confession - and if, maybe, we were thinking about the same things.

 _That_ possibility was somewhere between terrifying and exciting, but, given what I might do to her purely on accident if we got too close, definitely leaning more towards terrifying.

"Um, Edward…"

I glanced at her - and suddenly, as our eyes met, we were both smiling.

"I think maybe we're _both_ a little absurd," she told me. "I'm sorry I told Emmett what he needed to know to corner you."

"It was probably unavoidable," I sighed. "You made it easier, but he could have tracked me by scent if it had come to that. There are a limited number of places you could go for coffee around here, and I gave him that piece of information myself."

"Very limited," she agreed, sliding across my lap as she got ready to move to a chair of her own. "I guess this means we can work, then?"

I nodded tightly, suddenly hyper-aware, as Isobel shifted in preparation for standing up, that her rear was very soft and shapely, and that it was pressed against my leg. As she rose, I very deliberately turned my mind to Spanish verb conjugations, trying to bring my thoughts back into line.

"Edward? Are you okay?"

I realized that she had taken a seat beside me while I was attempting to distract myself and was now watching me curiously, no doubt wondering about my abstraction. "I'm fine," I told her, scooting my chair closer and leaning in to kiss her cheek, enjoying the blush that immediately followed. It was such an innocent reaction, even though Isobel wasn't precisely innocent. Or, maybe _more_ precisely, she wasn't _ignorant_ \- I supposed what she knew _was_ innocent in the sense of being guiltless, and was applied with an artlessness that I found wonderfully appealing. "I love you," I told her.

"I love you too," she replied, reaching one hand up to ruffle my hair. "Mmm, soft," she observed somewhat absently. "Now - I haven't tried to memorize the vocab from chapter eight at all. Was all of it going to be on the next test, or just some of it? Could you quiz me on it?"

We spent the rest of the hour studying, minus a few short distractions when I somehow or other found my gaze lingering a little too long on Isobel's lips and subsequently had to kiss them. She left me five minutes before three with an unnecessary reminder that it wasn't yet dark and I should avoid being caught climbing buildings. I smiled at the admonishment and hid my eye-roll. Once she had left, I climbed a convenient tree and proceeded to win our undeclared race to the cafe.

Unfortunately, I didn't manage to arrive before Emmett. He greeted me with a wave and a satisfied grin as I descended from the trees to the roof of the building. "You're late, man," he said. "Pretty sure I saw the kid that your Cygnet is meeting go in - only non-white person to enter or leave in the last half hour, so, ya know, pretty obvious."

"How long have you been here?" I asked sullenly, watching Isobel's truck chug slowly into view.

"Had Jasper drop me on the way home," he answered. "Anyway, your girl's friend looked good - like he works out. You sure you're okay with this?"

I leveled a glare at him and didn't answer.

He held up his hands. "Whatever, bro. I'm just saying: if it were Rosie…"

That made me laugh. "If it were Rose, you would let her do whatever the hell she wanted and probably kiss her feet while you were at it."

"True," he allowed. "Her feet _are_ pretty. But the part you're missing is how I'd rough the other guy up a little beforehand to make sure he kept in line."

Isobel parked carefully, her teeth digging into her lower lip in concentration, and then hopped out and made her way into the cafe, casting a few glances up at the roof as though checking to make sure we weren't visible. Which we weren't, of course.

"That's why - _one_ reason why - I'm here," I pointed out. "Besides, Rose likes it when you get all possessive. Isobel doesn't feel the same way."

Below, I could hear Jacob and Isobel greeting each other, but found not being able to watch frustrating - almost as frustrating as talking to Emmett - which made getting a look at them while momentarily putting off any further conversation with my brother an appealing proposition. I focused in on the various patrons within the cafe, hopping swiftly from mind to mind until I found someone paying them at least cursory attention - just in time to see Isobel put her arms around Jacob. It was, mercifully, a brief and obviously innocent hug - just a quick mutual squeeze of shoulders - but rage still coursed through me at the sight of another man's hands on _my mate_. My hand tightened around the bit of the building's stucco facade that I was leaning on, gouging out a fist-sized chunk.

Emmett laughed at my reaction, pulling me back outside and into my own head. "Yeah, I can _see_ you're just fine with it."

"Shut up," I growled.

"So," Emmett continued as though I hadn't spoken, "just _how long_ are you going to wait to, you know, _seal the deal_?"

And there we had it. Trust Emmett to ignore any attempts at a lead-up and just go right to the point. I turned to him with a snarl.

"I get that you need to be a little cautious," he went on, once again ignoring my displeasure. "She's human and young, so that makes sense. But Alice doesn't seem to think you're planning to go on with _getting_ it on at all, ever."

A hundred things I might say - most of them reminding Emmett that it was none of his damned business - rose to choke me, but ultimately it was the truth that escaped: "And just what do you recommend? I could _kill_ her, Emmett. One wrong movement - one wrong _touch_ \- and she's gone _forever_."

His eyes narrowed with something that looked a lot like contempt. "Obviously. So why aren't you coming up with a plan, dumbass?" he fired back. "Because your current one is fucking garbage - almost as garbage as your _last_ one, which _also_ involved avoiding several things you needed to do to nurture your bond with her."

"I'm _not_ turning her," I snarled.

"Did I say that? I didn't fucking say that. Even if you _did_ plan to turn her, the fact that Charlie Swan is a cop makes the timing important, right? So you'd still have to deal with this shit in the meantime. Get your head out of your fucking ass for like two minutes and think about this rationally." He gave me a dark look and began ticking off points on his fingers. "You can't spend every minute of your time with her. The fact that she's human, has to fucking sleep, is still living with her parent, and that you're pretending to be human yourself all make it impossible. You can't mark her. You would either turn or kill her if you tried. And now you won't let yourself get any sexual relief either? It's just not gonna fly, bro. You're going to lose it."

"I can control myself," I snapped.

"Right, right, just like you could control yourself when you decided not to pursue her at all," he scoffed. "What you mean is that you can control yourself _right now_. The longer this goes on, though, the harder it's gonna be. So then what happens when you _can't_ control yourself anymore, and the only plan you've ever had is 'I just won't'? What happens to _Isobel_?"

Unease gripped my chest and, though I tried to hold my glare steady, I found it hard to meet my brother's eyes.

"For that matter, who even gives a shit if you _could_ control yourself? Humans have sex drives, too, you know," Emmett went on mercilessly. "You think Isobel wants to spend her life in some piece of shit celibate marriage? I've seen the way that girl looks at you, and I can guarantee that she does _not_ want that."

I froze, the astounding selfishness of my assumptions striking me all at once, and my head dropped into my hands.

Of course I had always intended for any discussion of my physical relationship with Isobel to be just that - a discussion between the two of us, with each of us having some input. But somehow I had been working from the premise that only my needs were _needs_ , and that any opinions she expressed would simply be _desires_. Even if I was deeply concerned for her physical safety - and I was - I understood with sudden clarity how arrogant I would probably appear to her, insisting that I was _right_ and she had no possible grounds for serious disagreement.

Completely overlooked by me was the fact that she had legitimate physical, emotional and psychological needs, too, any or all of which might include sexual intimacy - if not immediately, then _eventually_ \- with her romantic partner.

She shouldn't have ended up with me, I thought, despair tugging at me. There were so many risks involved and no way for her to walk away. It wasn't _right_.

Damn it. _Damn_ it. "What do I do?" I groaned.

"Fuck, man, I don't know," Emmett sighed. "I'm just saying, you need to start thinking about it and come up with something, because otherwise you're gonna fuck _everything_ up, just like you almost did once already."

Why? Why was _every single aspect_ of my relationship with Isobel _so_ fraught with potential disaster?

Emmett's giant hand landed on my shoulder. "Look - I'm sorry, bro. It just...needed to be said, and no one else seemed willing to say it." I didn't reply and felt his stance shift uncomfortably. "Hey - I think the Cygnet and her friend are talking about you."

I had followed Isobel here to listen to her interactions with Jacob, so in spite of Emmett's transparent attempt at changing the subject, I allowed my attention to be directed to the cafe below us.

It wasn't as though I could solve the problem just raised by Emmett at this moment anyway. I realized _now_ that it wasn't something I could decide alone. Even the first step, though - which required coming up with a way to discuss the issue rationally - wasn't anything instantly solvable.

All I could really do was what I had come to do: make certain that Isobel was safe and that Jacob Black understood that she, for better or worse - and probably worse - belonged to _me_.


	46. Chapter 45

Note: We're officially at the part of the semester where I hate everything, which conveniently coincided with electing the American version of Silvio Berlusconi as head of state, so now I hate everything twice as much as usual.

* * *

XLV.

Jacob waved at me enthusiastically from the table he had claimed for us as I entered the cafe. I waved back and made my way up to the counter to order before joining him, but tea didn't take long, so I only kept him waiting for a moment.

He stood up at my approach, and so I leaned in quickly to give him a friendly hug, hoping that Edward wasn't watching yet. His protectiveness and jealousy _were_ pretty absurd, and I knew he would react even to something as innocent as a hug.

Jake, his thoughts apparently following mine, shook his head as I released him and we sat down. "What would your boyfriend say to you hugging another guy?" he teased me.

"Something under his breath to avoid pissing me off," I replied, rolling my eyes. At least, he would _probably_ say it under his breath. He might even be saying it under his breath right now.

Jacob laughed. "You know, the weirdest thing about seeing you again is how _funny_ you've gotten. I just remember you as this quiet, wide-eyed waif, doing whatever Rebecca told you to."

"Your memory is faulty, then," I replied. "Or," I allowed thoughtfully, "we chased you away too quickly for you to ever see the arguments Rebecca and I used to get into. I went along with a lot of her ideas, but I've always had a pedantic streak and she would get _so mad_ when I corrected her on something."

Jake laughed, his eyes crinkling at the corners. "Sounds like Becca," he said before sobering a bit. "How _are_ you and Edward? I heard you weren't on great terms for a few days there."

" _Seriously_?" I demanded. "God, our fathers are worse than an entire quilting circle of old ladies. Things are fine, and weren't that wrong to begin with. We just both had some things to figure out. Now they're figured out, and we're good."

"Oh, okay, cool," he said nodding, before a scowl crossed his face. "My dad and Charlie - well, they weren't on the best terms last week, mostly because my dad was _so_ happy." He sounded more irritated than his concern for the friendship between Charlie and Billy warranted.

"Is that why you didn't want me to go out to La Push?" I wondered.

He ran a hand through his hair, chuckling uncomfortably, "Well, I guess it's related, but it's not so much about you as it is about me. See, uh…" he paused. "Well, like I said before, it's tribal stuff. You sure you want to hear about it?"

I shrugged - I didn't even know what _it_ was. "Why not?"

"Well - okay. Sorry, I'm just not used to explaining that stuff to - you know - other people. It feels weird."

I nodded and motioned for him to go on.

"Remember how I told you about that dumb fasting thing we have to do? Where we wait around to see a wolf that definitely isn't coming?" he asked.

I nodded again.

"Well, usually it's just once a year, sometime between late September and mid-October, so we did it just a few months ago. But with you dating a Cullen, some of the guys I hang with are pushing to do it _again_. You know, just in case." He rolled his eyes. "It's freaking pissing me off. I _hate_ fasting."

He was serious and it sounded like the Quileutes were taking the Cullens seriously - more seriously than I'd like - but I was still forced to smile at the plaintive note in Jake's voice. Trust a teenage boy to be more concerned with missing some meals than any other part of a ritual. "I'm sorry that my love life going well is such a problem for you."

"Yeah," he agreed, giving a snort of laughter, "you should be. In fact, your boyfriend should probably buy me dinner." He grinned across the table at me. "That's a fair trade, right? You can come along, too, I guess - I mean, if you're insecure about seeing your boyfriend spend time alone with someone as charming as I am."

I laughed both at his smugness and the picture I suddenly got of the look Edward was likely wearing if he happened to have overheard Jake's proposition. "We _should_ hang out sometime," I told Jacob. "Dinner might be weird, but I'm sure we could figure out something. If nothing else, I'm pretty sure Charlie still has Scrabble put away somewhere."

"Oh no - I'll bet Scrabble with you would be _awful_. Based on Charlie's descriptions, you know every word in the English language."

"Hardly," I scoffed.

"We have Risk. If we can't come up with anything else, that'd be a safer choice," he finished.

"If we want to stay up _all night_ , maybe," I argued.

He grinned at me. "What, you're not any good at war games? Come on, Bells, don't be such a girl."

I grinned right back, though my expression might have been nearer a baring of teeth. "Well, Jake," I said, "if you think you need to get me absolutely exhausted in order to even have a shot at beating me, I suppose I can accept that sort of handicap to avoid bruising your fragile ego by winning far too easily."

He threw back his head and laughed, apparently pleased by my trash-talking. "Rebecca should get you to tutor her. She _hates_ it when I call her a girl, but she can't ever come up with something good to say, so she has to resort to slapping me. And she slaps like a girl."

God, he was annoying, I thought half-affectionately, while half-considering slapping him myself. He still reminded me of his much younger self, trailing after me and the twins, trying to find ways to be irritating enough to get even a moment's attention. If this was what it was like to have a younger brother, maybe I was glad to be an only child after all. Edward could probably relax, though, if he was treating me the way he did his sisters. "Speaking of Rebecca...Charlie mentioned something about Hawaii?" I told him, changing the subject.

His smile became a little wistful. "Yeah. She got a good scholarship for volleyball, but she fell in love with surfing - and a surfer - pretty quickly. She scares the crap out of Dad with all the sh - stuff she does now. Surfing, rock climbing, mountain biking, freediving - pretty much anything difficult and dangerous. She loves it, though. She's _never_ coming home."

"She met a guy down there?" I asked.

Jake nodded. "Solomon. He's on the verge of making it as a professional surfer and he also does training for freediving. They came up for Christmas, which was weird considering Rebecca had only been gone a few months and it's expensive, but I think Solomon wanted to ask Dad for permission to marry her, so I'm sure he'll propose soon. He might be waiting till her birthday."

"That seems a little fast. Do you like him?" I asked Jake.

"Yeah," Jake answered with a grin. "He's cool - lots of fun. Couldn't take the cold water up here, though," he snickered.

"Holy shit, you took him into the ocean in _December_?" I asked.

"We were in wetsuits, hoods, gloves, the works," Jake protested. "If you wait for warm weather to do stuff around here, you'll never do anything, so, yeah, my friends and I are in and out of the water all year round. Anyway - it was just a competition to see who could take it longer and the other guys had blankets and a fire going so that we could warm up when we got out."

I shook my head, wondering if I would be so cavalier about the cold if I'd grown up here. "Well, that sounds great for Rebecca," I told Jake. "Is she still in college?"

"Oh yeah," Jake said with a nod. "But she's getting an art degree, so," he shrugged, "you know. Might not do that much good."

"A degree is better than no degree," I told him. "What's Rachel going for? She's at UW?"

"Yeah," he answered. "She's doing computer science."

"Well that's not surprising," I replied, startled by just how _not surprised_ I was, even after not having seen her in years.

"I know, right? Sometimes I think she's, I dunno, an android that the hospital gave us in place of the real Rachel as an experiment or something," he told me with a smirk that reminded me of Edward, but wasn't nearly as captivating.

"An...android that ages?" I asked.

"Sure, why not?" he returned with a shrug.

Well - alright. "Is she dating anyone?" I wondered.

"Yeah, right," Jake scoffed. "Do you know how to tell if a computer science major is social?"

What? "Ummm, talk to them?" I suggested.

"You can do that, but you can _really_ tell by whose shoes he stares at _while_ you're talking to him. If he's social, it will be yours instead of his own," Jake explained - and I realized it was a joke.

Actually a reasonably funny joke - if a gross generalization. I mean - not that I had any firsthand experience with computer science majors, but it couldn't be true for _all_ of them.

"Okay, okay," I allowed with a laugh. "I guess Rachel is too shy to be the one to do the asking out."

"Let's just say that she's way more comfortable staring at her own shoes than someone else's," Jake agreed. "Dad is still hoping she'll come home when she's finished, although I dunno what she'd do here," he went on. "He seems to think she could do IT for the high school or something." Jake rolled his eyes. "He doesn't even understand the difference between programming and IT work."

"Yeah...that would be a pretty shitty career for someone with a four-year degree and the ability to actually do programming," I agreed. "I hope she doesn't get stuck doing that. If she focused on web design, though, she could probably do that from just about anywhere."

Jake scrubbed one hand through his hair. "Yeah...I don't think that's what she wants, though." He glanced up and saw me watching him curiously, so shrugged. "I dunno - just a feeling I get. She doesn't want to be here."

I remembered Charlie saying something similar, and so nodded in reply.

"What about you?" Jake asked, no doubt ready to stop talking about his own family. "Charlie said you were graduating early, I thought? Is that still happening?"

I shook my head. "I was taking college courses at the community college in Phoenix that also counted toward my high school credits." I sighed. "There's no community college around here, so I can't keep doing that. I'm really ahead on credits, though, so I have a lot of free periods. That's pretty nice."

"Have you started thinking about college?" he wondered.

"Um, a little," I temporized. Actually I'd thought about it a _lot_ , but none of it had been very useful. "What about you?"

Jake laughed. "Yep, I'm sure with my straight-C average, colleges will be _begging_ me to choose them."

"You're only a sophomore," I pointed out with a shrug. "You've got time to get your grades up."

"No thanks," he replied easily. "The only parts of school I like are gym and auto mechanics. I'm not gonna fail out, but I'm not gonna do more than the minimum to get by, either. My buddy Sam works at the auto shop in La Push - his uncle owns it - and he promised me a job when I graduate."

"Oh," I said. "Well - I guess it's good that you know what you want to do." It was more than I could say for myself, even if I didn't understand the appeal of a life of low-paying manual labor.

Then again, I would probably manage to drop a car on myself if I tried to do a job like that, so it was probably good that it didn't appeal to me.

"Sam's girlfriend," he went on, "you might remember her father, Harry Clearwater? - she built herself a forge in their backyard and has been teaching herself metalworking. She told me she'd start teaching me that, too, once I turned eighteen."

"Yeah, of course I remember Harry," I said. He was one of Charlie's old fishing buddies - not as close a friend as Billy Black, but close enough. "His daughter would be - Leah, right?" We had met a few times over the years.

Jake's teeth flashed white against his skin. "Yeah, that's her."

"She set up her own forge? That sounds hard - and pretty badass, too. What does she make?" I had never heard of anyone doing something like that.

"It _is_ pretty badass. Like I said, she's still teaching herself, but she's managed to make some pretty decent blades." He chuckled. "One of her first successful pieces was one of those pizza cutters - you know, with the handle and the curved blade?" He made a rocking motion with one hand to demonstrate proper pizza-cutting technique, and I nodded. "She gave it to Dad for Christmas, and it works really well."

I laughed. "That's awesome." Now I was a little envious - I didn't understand the desire to fix cars, but making cool things? _That_ sounded appealing. I wished I had an interest like that.

"It's pretty funny when Charlie and Harry get together with my dad," he told me. "All three of them trying to outdo each other bragging about their daughters. I think Dad might win just by having two, though."

"Probably also by having two who are doing such completely different sets of cool things," I agreed.

He beamed at me briefly before his smile became rueful. "God, somehow we're talking about my family and stuff again. I'm supposed to ask about you, or Rachel might come up with a way for Rebecca to reach through the internet and slap me - like a girl - next time we talk."

I shrugged, hoping that I wasn't blushing. "I mean, there's not that much to say."

He rolled his eyes. "Yeah - I mean, you just moved halfway across the country to live with your dad for the first time ever. Nothing interesting about _that_. Your mom got married, right?"

Well, I supposed he had a point there. "Yeah. His name is Phil and he's pretty great."

"Oh yeah - I think Charlie mentioned he had to move a lot because…" Jake trailed off, clearly trying to remember.

"He plays baseball," I supplied.

"Right!" He laughed suddenly. "I'm surprised you get along with him, given - you know - your - uh - "

"Complete lack of interest in doing anything that requires the slightest bit of physical coordination?" I supplied for him.

"Yep," he agreed. "That sounds right."

"Yeah, Phil doesn't really understand me at all," I told Jake, "except that I can be goaded into being competitive. But he's not one of those people who, like... _needs_ to understand other people, or else thinks there's something wrong with them. He just finds me funny. And we did do _some_ stuff together - like he got me playing some computer strategy games, and we both like sci fi movies. Plus," I added, "it's always been really obvious that he cares what I think of him - at first, and maybe still a little, because my mom cares what I think about him. But it's kinda just grown into caring about my good opinion _generally_ , because he cares about _me_."

"Doesn't sound much like a father figure," Jake commented.

"Well, no, not much," I agreed. "He's a lot younger than Renee, so in some ways he feels more like my older brother or something. Anyway," I pointed out, "I already have a father figure."

"True," Jake allowed. "That was something that always freaked me out about the thought of my dad dating - which he never has, but sometimes I thought about what might happen if he _did_. Someone trying to be my mom would just be...gross."

"Yeah, that would be gross," I said.

"Parents shouldn't date," he decided. "They should just be married and...parents."

"I wish Charlie would date," I confessed. It was true - I worried about him - and so I spent a while questioning Jake regarding what he knew about my father's social life. It was about as dismal as I had always feared, so I eventually turned the conversation to other people from the reservation whom I remembered from childhood, trying to ferret out if Jake had any crushes among my old acquaintances. His coppery blush was my reward for finding them, and he blushed often, confirming my suspicion that his interest in girls was wide-ranging.

"Do you ever go out with any of them?" I asked.

He laughed, flashing his white teeth, to cover his embarrassment. "Sometimes," he temporized.

It was dark by the time we said goodbye, and Jake offered to walk me to where I had parked Simone. She was waiting for me just around the corner, though, so I declined and we instead parted ways outside the cafe, exchanging another quick hug and a promise to get together again soon.

As I rounded the corner of the side street where I had parked, I was glad that I had sent Jake away, because Simone wasn't the only one waiting for me. Edward stood haloed by the glow of a street lamp, his skin almost human-looking in the orangey light - an impression belied by his inhuman stillness. I hadn't quite worked out exactly what it meant when he went motionless like that, but it did generally seem to coincide with moments when he was distracted, like he had to _remember_ to keep doing things like blinking and visibly breathing.

Maybe he did.

"Hey," I greeted him as I approached, a little surprised to find him there, but not exactly displeased. Being with him made things feel _right_ in a way that I couldn't quite name and didn't entirely trust, but it undeniably felt good.

He didn't reply - at least not in words. Before I had time to understand what was happening, his arms were around me, lifting me briefly off my feet. When he set me down again, I was positioned with my back pressed against Simone.

"Are you - did my coffee - um - " I thought I should probably avoid the word _date_ , "thing with Jake make you jealous?" I wondered, unable to otherwise explain the strange urgency of his body pressed against mine.

"No," he replied firmly - but oddly gently, too, even though his current posture was on the aggressive side.

His lips, when they touched the skin just above my eyebrow a second later, echoed his tone, and did so again as he pressed them against my cheek. His next stop was my mouth, and by then I was wondering what, exactly was going on. When he put his fingers on my jaw, tilting my head to the side and exposing my neck, I tried to ask: "Um," I managed to squeak.

"I won't hurt you," he assured me.

"I know that, but - "

My mouth snapped shut as his lips both touched my neck and I simultaneously realized that, for whatever reason, he didn't want to answer questions. That was - unfortunate. While the sensation of his lips on my neck was _very_ pleasant, it - or maybe his demeanor in general - amplified other, less pleasant, feelings I had been having recently. I didn't know quite whether I wanted to clutch him closer or shove him away, and both desires grew out of some underlying sense that his strange behavior was covering something bad. Maybe related to my fear that he was getting ready to leave? It was hard to think clearly with my incredibly hot vampire boyfriend's lips tracing their way slowly down my neck, and that lack of clarity acted as a secondary source of unease.

Anyway - my hands remained resting on he shoulders, not responding to either impulse, probably because they were about evenly matched in strength.

After what seemed an eternity - but was really just a single long moment - Edward straightened enough to press his forehead to mine.

"Are you okay?" I whispered.

For a moment he didn't respond, at least not in words. Instead he pulled me closer, his eyes drifting closed, but then he nodded slowly. "I'm fine. It's simply - I...spent the last two hours thinking about all the ways in which I'm not good enough for you. Now..." Now he was acting like this, whatever this _was_. He let his explanation trail off with a shrug.

It wasn't much of an explanation. His words struck me with needle-like stabs of panic, and fought down my reaction only with difficulty. "Well, _don't_ think about that," I urged. It wasn't true anyway.

He seemingly took my words as a joke and smiled. "I'm sorry if I frightened you."

He was frightening me _now_ , but I felt stupid feeling - let alone expressing - something I couldn't really explain.

"I should let you get home," he said.

It sounded like he was saying something else. Was he supposed to sound like he was saying something else? I was back to trying to balance the seesaw of wanting to both cling to him and push him away. "Do you still want me to call you later?" I managed to ask.

"Of course," he replied, easing a little of the tightness in my chest. "I want you to call me _now_ , but that would likely defeat the purpose of letting you go home."

Okay, I thought, so whatever was going on wasn't going on tonight. That was something, right?

"I'll see you tomorrow?" I asked, hoping my voice didn't sound weird, or desperate, or whatever it was I was feeling.

It must have been a little off, because Edward looked at me strangely. "I'll wait for you in the morning," he promised.

"Okay," I sighed, and let him go when he stepped backward.

"I love you," he said - and that _didn't_ sound like it meant anything else, which was reassuring.

"I love you, too," I replied - and fled. Since grabbing him and demanding that he stay put wasn't really a viable option - especially since I had absolutely no evidence he wasn't already planning to - getting away was the next best thing I could do for my rapidly unraveling equilibrium.

When I got home, I quickly threw together some grilled turkey, cheese and tomato sandwiches, and then took mine upstairs so that I could talk to Angela.

"I think I'm going crazy," I told her when she picked up.

Her laughter, for some reason, made me relax. "That sounds encouragingly normal. So what's going on?"

It was easy to tell Angela everything: about my sudden reluctance to get too close to Edward, about the conversation Charlie and I had had, and about my fear that either Edward or I might choose to walk away. I didn't know if my two fears were related or not, but it seemed like a good guess, even if I couldn't yet trace the links between them. After all, my sense that Edward was hiding something this evening - and the immediate fear that I wouldn't see him tomorrow - had intensified my ambivalence about his expressions of - whatever that had been. Not love or affection, I thought, or at least not primarily. Maybe more like frustration?

"If you feel like your fears are related, they probably _are_ ," she told me, "at least to the degree that when you get upset being close is suddenly more frightening than reassuring."

"But why would that be?" I wondered.

"I don't know exactly. Maybe you're afraid of getting hurt somehow?" Her voice sounded like shrug. "You'll work it out if you spend more time on it, I'm sure - you're obviously good at that. It's finding ways to cope with your fears that will probably be the most challenging. I can always give you the name of the woman I saw in Port Angeles, if you find that you need to talk to someone."

"Thanks," I replied.

"One question, though - if Edward was freaking you out, why didn't you just tell him?"

Why _hadn't_ I just told him? That seemed - refreshingly simple and somehow wrong to do to him at the same time. "Because..." I began, still trying to work it out. "I guess...I didn't tell him because he wasn't exactly doing anything _wrong_ , I was just...ugh...and I couldn't even tell him _why_ so - it seems wrong to make him feel bad? I guess?"

"You just need to make sure you frame it right," Angela admonished me. "Don't make it about _him_ , make it about _you_. As in: 'I know you probably don't mean anything by the way you're acting right now, but it's really scaring me.' If it worked - mostly - on nosey church women, I'm pretty sure it will work on a boyfriend, too."

I had a sudden picture of a dignified younger Angela firmly putting some old lady in her place and laughed. "Okay, I'll keep that in mind," I told her. "But enough about me. We haven't talked about Ben in way too long, and I want an update."

Her blush was practically audible over the phone. "There's nothing to update," she told me.

"No study dates?" I prodded.

"I'm not doing that," she replied.

"Why not?" I wondered.

She heaved a sigh. "Because I can't even _ask_ , Isobel. I can hardly even manage _good morning_. You know how much trouble I had - still sometimes have - talking to Edward?"

"Yeah," I said.

"Ben is _at least_ that bad, and maybe worse, because I wouldn't ever have a shot with Edward and I'm not sure I would want one, but I might, maybe, possibly have some kind of shot with Ben." I heard a thump and decided she had fallen back against her pillows. "It's completely paralyzing."

"Okay," I told her briskly, "then I guess it will have to be a larger group thing."

"What?" she asked sharply.

"Well, you got more used to Edward by spending time with him in a group," I reasoned. "So maybe that's the way to move forward with Ben."

"Ummm…" Angela began hesitantly.

"No, no, just listen," I told her, the ideas coming quickly as I concentrated on making a plan. "Mike and I need help with trig - well, Mike needs more help than I do, but close enough. If you and the two of us all need help, then it will be dead easy to get Alice and Jessica to tutor us. But then we have three people who need tutoring and only two tutors, so I'll suggest Ben. He's in my class, so I can do the inviting and maybe we could - hmmm - offer to host? I mean, the people who are getting tutored? If we host and provide food, that should be a decent incentive, right?"

"Well...maybe..." she allowed.

"Then Jessica will obviously tutor Mike," more accurately, someone would have to beat her off with a club to keep her from claiming him, "and you can have Alice at first if you want, but at some point I'll come up with a really complicated question that only Alice is likely to be able to answer, and we can switch - "

"How do you know you'll even be able to do that?" Angela demanded.

"Because," I replied, "I'm good at research and I'm not _bad_ at math, just bored by it. Helping you will be motivation to work through the boredom. I'll teach _myself_ math if I need to." Which I wouldn't, since Alice could just tell me what sort of thing I would need to bring up to baffle Ben. "I'll wait for whatever signal you want to give me, though," I promised.

"Weeeell..."

"Come on, Angela," I urged, "you're not risking anything by letting me _try_. And you won't _really_ know how much you like him until you've talked to him a little."

"Yeah," she sighed. "But does it even matter? It's not like I can...do anything about it, even if I _do_ really like him, which I might not - "

"Take the first step first, and worry about the other ones later," I lectured her. "If you _do_ like him and you can't stomach either a confrontation with your parents - parent? - _or_ a covert relationship, you can always hold onto your feelings until you graduate and see if they're still the same then."

"That's...true. Unappealing, but true. And," she added with a sigh, "feeling like I'm going to melt into the floor every time he's within ten feet of me is pretty unappealing, too."

"Exactly," I agreed briskly. "And, like I said, you're not taking any real risks this way."

"No," she said, sounding dissatisfied, "I'm letting you take the risks, which is probably wrong. But..."

"But you've been helping me out, so you should let me help you out," I replied firmly.

"Okay, set up your study group," she sighed.

I thanked her for the permission, and then we both broke into laughter over the absurdity of it - _I_ was taking all the risks, after all, and it wasn't _much_ of a risk. If Ben refused - even rudely - it couldn't possibly mean very much to me, and he seemed much too nice to be off-handedly rude.

"What about Edward?" Angela asked.

"What about him?" I replied. "If you think I can concentrate on a bunch of deadly-dull numbers with someone who looks like Edward Cullen smoldering at me, you have a much higher opinion of my self-control than I deserve."

She laughed again. "Fair enough. I would find him distracting, too, and he wouldn't even be _smoldering_ at me."

There wasn't much else to say and I still needed to call Edward, so we said goodnight and got off the phone. Thanks to Angela, I now _needed_ to talk to him, both to act on her suggestion and to get a little covert help in setting up my study group plan.

Edward picked up before the first ring had even completed. "Good evening, Isobel," he said in his most caramel-sounding voice. It felt almost like he was whispering in my ear, and a shiver went up my spine.

My short, slightly self-conscious, "Hey, Edward," sounded crass and clumsy by comparison.

"You sound unhappy," he said. "Did anything happen?"

"Not unhappy," I told him quickly, maybe stretching the truth just a bit. "I just have a couple of things on my mind. I did want to talk to you about them, though."

"Of course," he replied. "I'm listening."

Okay, I told myself, get the uncomfortable one out of the way first. Deep breath. "The way you were acting scared me earlier," I told him bluntly, afraid that I wouldn't say it at all if I hesitated or tried to find a way to soften it. "Not," I added hastily, realizing the assumption he would probably make, "with you, um, kiss - kissing my neck." I could feel myself blushing, and I hoped Edward couldn't hear it as easily as I had heard Angela's blush. "I'm never afraid you'll hurt me - you know, like _that_. It just seemed like - " I trailed off.

"What did it seem like?" he asked, his voice low and rough.

That was what I was still trying to figure out - one of the drawbacks of not letting myself hesitate. "Do you remember that day in gym when I called you an idiot?"

"Yes, of course."

Right. Vampires. Perfect recall.

"It seemed like _that_." I remembered the way he had looked at me - like he might never see me again. "And - and I find that frightening."

"Because I was thinking of leaving then," he said.

I nodded, even though he couldn't see me. Though he hadn't confirmed his intentions at that specific moment before this, his desperate ambivalence had sort of given it away once he admitted that he had been considering abandoning me at all.

"It isn't like that, Isobel," he told me.

"Can I ask what it _is_ like?" Maybe that wasn't fair - I wasn't telling him absolutely everything I was thinking. With his penchant for assuming the worst, I felt like it was pretty necessary for me to have some vague idea about what the hell I was thinking and feeling before I tried to communicate that information to him. Still - I wanted to know, and so I might as well ask. If he didn't want to try to explain yet, I was capable of letting it go.

He was silent for a long moment, but I waited it out, fairly certain that he was just thinking and that I hadn't somehow offended him. "Vampires have...certain mating instincts," he said at last. "Like most of our instincts, they're quite...difficult to control. Because you're human, some of them would kill you. Some have the _potential_ to kill you - or at least hurt you to a greater or lesser degree. And - because control is already difficult, discussing it - especially _with_ you - is...not without risk. I am - trying to find a way to navigate this, most particularly the part where I must give you more specifics. I recognize that you deserve to make informed choices, but I...don't want to find myself - hm - "

"I think I understand," I interjected when he hesitated, obviously searching for the right words. He was trying to say that he didn't want to find himself going full-vampire and actually _doing_ one of those things that might kill me or hurt me to a greater or lesser degree. Which was definitely a goal I could get behind. No need to make him spell it out. "Thank you for explaining." Edward's position did sound difficult - probably difficult enough to make him come across as a little tortured. So - okay. Maybe now I had something different to assume if he started acting - like that?

Or maybe my fears would still get the better of me.

Depressing, but I would just assume for the moment that the new piece of information he had offered would at least give me something to fight back against myself with.

He let out a slow breath. "You're welcome. Was there anything else?"

"There was," I replied. "It's...kind of a favor?"

"Oh?"

I smiled at the sudden uptick in interest in his tone. "Yeah. Do you know Ben Cheney?"

There was a brief hesitation before he answered, his words clipped: "Yes. Why?"

I laughed at him. "It's not for me, _obviously_. Angela kind of has a thing for him, and I'd like to know if he might kind of have a thing for her, or if he at least might be open to the idea. And then it turns out I know - am in fact _dating_ \- a mind-reader."

"So you want me to - ask him?" Edward guessed.

" _Noooo_ ," I replied instantly. "You need to be sneakier than that. Do you have any classes with him?"

"Second period," he sighed.

"Perfect! You just need to strike up a conversation with Alice about Angela in Ben's general vicinity, and then see if he thinks anything in particular about her. And I need to know before third period, because I need to do some sneaky things, too."

"What kinds of sneaky things?" Edward asked, sounding suspicious.

"Things that are going to tie up one of my weeknights, but will probably help my trig grade a lot," I answered. "And Alice will be invited. Well - actually coerced if she isn't as enthusiastic as I think she'll be."

He sighed into the phone. "The real danger is that she will be _more_ enthusiastic than you think she'll be, and take over whatever it is you're planning. Alice lives for...clandestine social operations."

"Yeah, I sort of got that feeling," I agreed.

"Just remember that I warned you," he told me. "Anything else on your mind?"

"Not really," I replied. "How was listening in on my conversation with Jake?"

"Fine," he answered a little curtly.

"Really fine, or you're-not-going-to-make-a-big-deal-about-it fine?" I pressed.

" _Really_ fine," he insisted. "You were right about Jacob Black's generalized interest in the opposite sex, and I realized something very important while I was listening to you tease him about it."

"Oh yeah? What's that?" I wondered.

"You wouldn't ever invest yourself in anyone whose interest in you wasn't very specific," he explained, "and teenage boys, as a rule, don't differentiate between young women very well. Their interest is nearly always entirely superficial - based on physical attraction, common tastes, and perhaps, if they're especially discerning, a shared sense of humor. Because that would not appeal to you, there aren't many men I need to worry about - at least not for a few years."

"Well, I suppose that's true." I _wouldn't_ be interested in anyone who saw me as less an individual than Edward did, in part because I wouldn't ever be interested in anyone other than Edward. "You shouldn't leave girls out, though. Teenage girls aren't any different. Not most of them."

"Very well - but _you_ are, and, for me, that is all that matters," he responded.

"I'm only different because it's you," I shot back, realizing even as I said it just how true it was. Before meeting Edward, I really hadn't had any ideal boy in mind, and hadn't really wanted one or wanted to meet one. I had _wanted_ the boys I dated to be generic, because I couldn't actually get attached to any one person if none of them were individuals to me.

Well - maybe that wasn't _exactly_ like other girls my age. It was probably a lot more messed up. Jessica, for instance, might be self-centered and more desirous of attention than a mutually supportive and caring relationship, but that was _normal_ for someone our age. She would probably grow out of it. My innate suspicion of emotional connection wasn't just normal adolescent bullshit.

Had I not met Edward, there was a very good chance that I would have been completely screwed.

Well, that was assuming I wasn't completely screwed now, but at least I had been forced into recognizing there was a problem. That had to be good, right?

"Isobel?"

"Huh?" I realized that Edward had said something in reply, and that I had completely missed it while wrapped up in my own reflections.

"Tired already?" he asked.

"No - just thinking," I explained. "Sorry. What did you say?"

"Nothing important," he replied, which made me feel a little bit bad. I should have been paying attention. "What were you thinking about?"

That was a more loaded question than he knew, but I decided I would try to answer it both truthfully and without getting into all the messy details I couldn't explain yet. "Just that I think I'm lucky I met you," I said, offering the most important part of the truth first. "You know," I added after a brief hesitation, "back before I really understood that I was your mate, I had this whole chemistry metaphor for how well we worked together and why. I thought of you as chloride and me as sodium, and I think it still kinda works, because sodium is really reactive, but usually not in a good way at all. Sometimes in an explosive way, like with water. I know figuring all this out has been pretty volatile, but I think it would have been a lot worse if it had been anyone _other_ than you."

Edward was silent for a moment, leaving me room to worry that I had said too much, and when he spoke his voice was a low growl. "Isobel," he said, " _that_ is a terrible metaphor. You cannot seriously tell me that you believe our bond is _ionic_. How can you possibly tell me with a straight face that we would dissolve into the first polar substance that came along? I can assure you that we would not. _This_ is a covalent bond - and not a single one. We share a double covalent bond at _least_ , and quite likely a triple."

I burst into laughter. "Okay, fair enough," I giggled. "But don't try to tell me we're part of a carbon ring, because I'm not letting you _covalent bond_ with anyone else."

We spent the rest of the conversation trying to decide on a diatomic molecule that was heteronuclear - because there was no way he and I were the _same_ kind of atom - covalently bonded, stable under non-extreme conditions, and also non-toxic. We left it unresolved when I started yawning, and reluctantly said goodnight.

I drifted off to sleep looking forward to the morning, when I would get to experience Edward's lovely voice, infectious laughter and sexy growl in person again. He was good over the phone, but so much better in person.


	47. Chapter 46

Note: I am _not_ satisfied with this chapter. The way I've arranged it and the next one is...awkward. But I've been sitting on it for several days now - four? five? - and I need to get something up, and I also need to write about fifteen papers (well, really only three, but they feel like fifteen) and have I mentioned that I fucking hate everything?

There's this great line from the Indigo Girls song "Closer To Fine": "I spent four years prostrate to the higher mind,/Got my paper and I was free." I've spent more than four years and I _cannot wait_ to get my paper and be free. (Someone remind me I said that in five years when I look back on this fondly and start contemplating grad school.)

* * *

XLVI.

"Isobel!" I said sharply enough that she startled, immediately making me feel guilty. When I continued, I made certain it was in a gentler tone: "You know you can't win this argument, so don't worry about it and finish your homework."

It was true, after all - she had lost three times already, and if we were spending the weekend in Seattle, she _did_ need to do her homework. I knew she had a paper due in her government class on Monday, because I had one, too - the difference was that I had written numerous papers on branches of government over the decades, and so I had simply updated one of my old ones. She still needed to write hers.

"I'm not even thinking about that," she responded with an offended sniff, casting a dirty look at the laptop parts spread out on my ottoman. Since she was using my desk and computer, I had taken the floor. "I should name it 'Macbeth,'" she muttered.

"It didn't murder your previous laptop," I told her, amused. "Time did that."

"Ophelia wasn't dead!" she protested. "Just, um…"

"Insane and on the point of suicide?" I offered, keeping up the literary metaphor as I bent my head over the little screws on the bottom of the case. The laptop Rosalie had recently replaced was three years old, but it had been top of the line when she had bought it, so it was still a decent mid-range computer now. It would be on the higher end of mid-range once I finished installing one of my old hard drives - I upgraded my hard drives frequently, and so my most recent had twice the storage capacity of the one Rose had installed - and the graphics card Alice had just replaced.

I still hadn't worked out how to give Isobel a phone, but I could at least give her a working computer. Alice would have taken this one into Seattle this weekend to donate it if I hadn't found a better use for it, which was why Isobel hadn't been able to find a good reason to say no.

I didn't mention that I was buying a new license for the operating system, but that was such a small thing - not much more than a hundred dollars - that it could scarcely be considered an omission at all.

"What were you thinking about if not arguing with me?" I asked her as I worked, my curiosity overcoming my dutiful resolve to let her finish her paper.

"It doesn't matter," she sighed.

My hand tightened around the screwdriver, leaving finger-shaped impressions in its plastic handle before I could get myself sufficiently under control to relax my grip. The truth was that, though I was working faster than a human would, I wasn't working at full speed. I needed a good reason to keep some distance between myself and Isobel. Though she was, of course, doing her homework - at least intermittently - it wasn't enough. I would write her damned paper _for_ her before I let it interfere with our time together - and so I had given myself a task that I knew would make her slightly life easier. _That_ goal was one I could - mostly - focus on.

If I let myself go to her - nothing bad would happen. Not now. She was still periodically uncertain about how close she wanted me and I was still in perfect control of my actions. My thoughts were, however, another matter entirely. Well - perhaps not _entirely_. They, too, were well-regulated for the moment, but when I pictured kissing Isobel, it was an effort to keep our imaginary clothes on and my imaginary hands both outside of them and caressing her...chastely. My experience with other kinds of hunger - or, rather, thirst - left me cognizant of the danger imaginary actions represented. Once one was clearly _imagining_ taking action, the temptation _to act_ became that much more difficult to resist.

In the short term, keeping my imagination in check meant keeping myself busy. In the longer term, all of this obviously made _discussing_ intimate matters with her very much more difficult. If we were talking about about them, I would be _thinking_ about them, and what would happen to all my resolve then?

I didn't know, and so in the interim I was playing for more time to find a way to circumvent...myself.

"Isobel," I sighed in exasperation.

She looked surprised as our eyes met. Ah - apparently she really _did_ think her thoughts, whatever they were, didn't matter. She wasn't just putting me off. I hated it when she gave me little equivocations like "nothing" or "it doesn't matter" in answer to my questions about what she was thinking, though. I would almost rather that she tell me she didn't want to share her thoughts with me.

I wouldn't like that, either, but it might be marginally less frustrating.

Her brows drew together and she tilted her head to one side, trying to understand what I was objecting to. "Everything you think about matters to me," I muttered, refocusing on the laptop to avoid seeing how ridiculous she found my declaration.

She _did_ laugh, but it was such an easy, happy laugh that I couldn't hold her amusement against her. "Jesus - _everything_?" she asked. "That must be _awful_. I'm so sorry."

"It's only awful," I told her, aware that I was being a hypocrite, "because you don't _tell_ me what you're thinking." Hadn't I defended Rosalie's right to keep her thoughts to herself in the face of Emmett's curiosity? I could only plead habit - I was accustomed to hearing any thoughts I wanted to hear, and, as tiresome as I often found hearing thoughts I _didn't_ want to hear, it turned out the reverse was worse.

"No," Isobel countered, " _not_ only because I don't tell you. Most of what I think about is completely ordinary and boring, like 'I should clean out the toaster tray tonight' and 'When was that math homework due again?' I would bore _myself_ to tears if I recounted all of it for you. In this case, though," she went on before I could argue, "I was just regretting the fact that I haven't had time to ask you any of the roughly a million questions I have about vampires, and I was trying to decide if there was anything I could have not done the last couple of days to make time for them. But I don't think there was - especially since we spend most of our time together at, you know, _school_ , inconveniently surrounded by lots of witnesses."

"Write them down as they come to you so that you don't forget," I suggested. "We'll have plenty of time tomorrow."

"Way ahead of you," she replied. "I printed out a list this morning, ordered first by what I wanted to know most, and second by which questions were the most involved, with bulleted potential follow-up questions beneath. And then I hid it in the tampon pocket of my purse to make sure that no one will ever, _ever_ find it."

I chuckled and was, once again, glad that I was incapable of blushing, though Isobel's knowing smile told me that I probably wasn't fooling her. Menstruation was not a topic anyone even referenced in passing back in my days as a human, but, had I remained human, I would have had to deal with its realities eventually. If I intended to remain at Isobel's side - as I obviously did - that _eventually_ , seemingly canceled for so long, had suddenly become _now_.

"You could give me your list today," I told her, attempting to banish my discomfort through sheer willpower. "It will only take one reading for me to memorize it, and then we can simply destroy the paper."

"I knew there was a reason I liked you," she teased me. "You're smart."

"Just the one reason?" I asked as she retrieved her purse and began fishing around inside of it.

"If I already like you," she replied, "does it really matter how many reasons I have?"

"Perhaps not," I allowed, "but it matters if I don't only want you to _like_ me." I kept my tone light, aware that we were joking, even as a fierce longing rose up in my chest. "If, in fact, I wanted you to _love_ me - "

Isobel paused in her searching to grin at me. "Well, luckily for you, it looks like maybe I _adore_ smart people."

"I'm not the only smart person in the world," I pointed out, losing a little of my levity.

"Mmm," she said thoughtfully, finally managing to come up with a small square of folded paper. "You know, I hadn't really noticed. I'm assuming you have proof to back up your claim?"

"That I'm not the only smart person in the world?" I laughed, amused again, as she dropped her purse. "Well, I _am_ talking to _you_."

"I'm not Narcissus and am therefore unlikely to fall in love with _myself_ , so you're safe there," she told me, coming nearer until I had to crane my neck to see her face. "But if there's two of us, you're right - there could be more. Maybe I do need more reasons."

I was on the point of replying when she dropped herself into my lap - which would have been bad enough today of all days, but I was sitting cross-legged and so her rear was not just pressed against my leg, but also - other places. And _then_ she wriggled around to better look at me, drawing an involuntary hiss from me as everything I had been trying _not_ to think about for the last day attempted, in that brief, incandescent moment of pure desire, to explode straight into action.

Isobel was my mate, and I _wanted_ her.

 _Somehow_ I managed to hang on to control, and quickly wrapped my arms around her - more to keep her from doing any additional moving around than for any other reason. She took the gesture as an endearment, though, and looped her arms loosely around my neck. When I glanced up, I saw that she was, for some reason, focused on my hair - completely and innocently unaware of the direction my thoughts had taken. That - made it slightly easier. A determined seduction would have been - quite likely impossible to resist. _This_ was simple inexperience coupled with inhumanly powerful instincts on my end that she could not be expected to take into account, seeing as I hadn't yet told her about them.

"I suppose," she said, reaching up to pat my hair lightly, "that your hair is very nice, and I've never seen quite this color before." Her eyes finally dropped to mine and she smiled as I struggled to bring my mind back to our conversation. "So maybe I can adore your hair, too, and then you can feel much more secure."

She was teasing me. I tried to dredge up the amusement I had felt a moment before. But-her scent surrounded me, stealing away at least half the IQ points she had professed to admire, and the fingers of her hand not currently engaged in stroking my hair had fallen just inside the collar of my shirt and burned pleasantly against my cold flesh. And then, of course, there was the fact that she was _still_ in my lap, with all the complications that was causing - or trying to cause - _mostly_ not causing, since bodily reactions that were involuntary for humans were largely under my conscious control, at least as long as I was paying attention.

And right now, I was _definitely_ paying attention.

"I should get you a snack," I ground out.

She blinked in confusion and sat up a little, her shifting weight causing me to try Rosalie's tactic of calculating complicated derivatives in an entirely different setting and with an entirely different purpose. "A...snack?" Isobel repeated.

"Alice and I bought...things," I explained briefly and probably not very informatively, lifting Isobel carefully off of me - no more _sliding_ \- and setting her on the floor beside me.

"Are you okay?" she asked. "Did I - ?"

"It's fine. _I'm_ fine. Everything is...fine." Or, at least, I would be fine _soon_ , and for and indeterminate duration, but probably at least for the rest of the day. Especially if I stuck to fixing up her new laptop and stopped tempting her to ignore her homework.

I stood up as she studied me with narrowed eyes. "I'll return in a moment," I muttered.

"Wait," she insisted before I could disappear. As much as I needed to get away, it seemed too rude to simply flit away from her without giving her a chance to even understand what was happening. By the same token, when she told me to wait, I waited, trying to find something to rest my eyes on besides my pretty, blushing mate, her clothes just rumpled enough to be slightly suggestive - at least in my current frame of mind.

"Can I ask you one of my questions now?" she said - but it wasn't a query so much as an indication of intention, because she didn't wait for my answer before unfolding her sheet of printer paper. "It's second on the list," she told me quietly, "but that's mostly because I was too embarrassed to put it first."

I risked a glance at her, and, as I had suspected, her entire face was bright red.

She took a deep breath. "Um...do vampires, you know, want to have-well, really, _do_ they have-I guess with their mates or just generally - "

"Vampires feel sexual desire," I cut her off, unable, at this moment, to wait while she worked up to being direct, "and act on it. Frequently. _Especially_ with their mates."

"Oh. So, then, when I just - "

And that was _too_ direct. "I'll return in a moment," I repeated firmly, and this time I _did_ disappear because there was simply no other choice. If the last five minutes had proved anything, it was that I couldn't trust myself to talk about this.

There was, thankfully, no one waiting to ambush me in the kitchen. If anyone had overheard the - well - _interlude_ Isobel and I had just shared, they were, for once, choosing to be discreet about it. No one was even thinking about me. I cut up an apple for Isobel, trying to ignore the sickly-sweet smell of its flesh and the syrupy secretions it left on my hands, and then put a couple of spoonfuls of a peanut butter mixed with some chocolate - which Alice had pointed out as something Isobel would like - into a dish for dipping. Finally I washed my hands - thoroughly - and returned upstairs.

Isobel was sitting at the desk again as I entered the room, her chin resting on her folded arms. She glanced at me and then looked back at the screen in front of her. Her list of questions was on top of my tools and computer parts on the ottoman.

I set the apples down on the desk beside her and then bent to kiss her hair. "I'm not ready to have sex yet," she told me abruptly.

"I know," I said into her hair.

The skin beneath her hair heated as she blushed, and that heat rose to warm my lips. "I'm sorry."

There were many things I might have said in response, but most of them led to precisely the conversation I was trying to protect her from. "Don't be. We'll deal with it eventually." I didn't know how yet, but I would come up with _something_.

"I'm also sorry that I - "

"Isobel," I cut her off, "love, _please_ don't be concerned."

"I just don't really have a lot of experience with this and it doesn't - I don't always know what's, you know, um - _I_ think I'm just - being playful - but then - "

"I know," I interrupted again. "You shouldn't apologize for that. _I_ should apologize for - " I tried to decide how to phrase it, " - the impulses that prompt me to misread your intentions." Though there were times, such as this afternoon, when her _intentions_ didn't factor in nearly as much as her lovely, warm, wonderfully soft body. It was just my luck - _both_ our luck - that Isobel didn't realize how enticing she was.

I brushed my knuckles against her cheek, marvelling anew at how warm and soft her skin was. She tilted her head back just a little and raised her eyes to look at my face, her fiery blush following the path my hand had taken. Her eyes were as dark and secretive as some wild creature that had, inexplicably and against all probability, chosen to trust _me_ \- a monster that looked human and smelled of cold death.

"I'm going to work on your laptop," I whispered, letting my hand drop. She nodded and I pulled myself away from her. The list of questions I tucked away to read-and destroy-once I was alone.

This time I managed to remain focused.

Two hours later, all the new hardware was installed and working smoothly, I had transferred all Isobel's files from her old laptop, and all the programs she used - mostly open source; she, or her parents, seemed to have an aversion to paying for software - were installed. I had also added a few programs we had extra licenses for, though I didn't know if she would use them, because I didn't know if she ever edited photos or had any interest in 3D modeling. I also bought her a year of a professional-grade antivirus service. The free versions were generally good enough, but no reason not to upgrade if one had money to spare - which I did. With any luck, Isobel wouldn't even notice, and what she didn't notice she couldn't get angry about.

We said goodnight beside her truck, holding tightly to each other in spite of the fact that we would be separated for only a few hours. Of course, I always felt such separations acutely, but Isobel was usually more cavalier about parting for an evening, probably because she spent so much of every night asleep. I suspected, based on the change, that she still believed she was withholding something important from me by attempting to proceed through our physical relationship with caution - with an emphasis on _attempting_ , because I was not certain her efforts could be termed successful. She might not have a vampire's instincts, but the mating bond undoubtedly pulled at her in much the same ways it pulled at me, attempting to disarm her natural circumspection.

As much as I wished I could tell her the truth and relieve whatever responsibility she felt, I saw no way to broach the topic without actually broaching the topic. All I could do for the moment was continue to reassure her that her feelings were perfectly valid and that I didn't resent them in the least.

In fact, under the circumstances, they were nothing less than extremely convenient.

When Isobel's tail lights had disappeared, I turned to look at the house. The thought of returning to my room was suddenly insupportable - it would still smell of her, and I might find imagining all the ways Isobel dropping herself into my lap might have ended differently a temptation too great to resist.

Instead, I went for a run. I found myself naturally heading for the clearing with the stream and the rocks, and when I reached it I stopped. Even in the dark, with the colors muted due to the lack of light, it was a peaceful place. I pulled out Isobel's list.

She had, I noted, written the entire thing in the third rather than second person - not a single "you" in sight, which was probably a conscious choice; it was another layer of deniability. In some ways, minus her inability to lie convincingly, Isobel was a natural at keeping our secrets.

The first question on the list was, as she had already revealed, _not_ about sex. It was about eye color: "Why does vampire eye color vary over time?" with the follow-up question "Does it vary for all vampires or only those on a restricted diet?"

I snorted a laugh - "restricted diet" indeed.

The next _was_ about sex and had been neatly crossed out, but there were more questions beneath it about mixing lust and bloodlust, procreation, and other ways mates might physically bond. Other questions included what our flesh was made of, how we metabolized blood and water, whether we needed blood to survive, how the venom worked and whether there was any danger from a topical application, how long vampires had existed, who the oldest member of the family was and how long they had been alive, and what other kinds of odd abilities - besides precognition and mind-reading - had been discovered in vampires. There were a lot of questions. She had completely filled the page.

I read through them and then balled up the sheet of paper, which was already beginning to disintegrate in the rain, and stuffed it in a pocket.

There were no stars and only a brighter patch where the moon shone somewhere behind the clouds. I raised my face to the dark sky, the cold droplets of rain wetting my hair and running down my cheeks. I could tell that they were marginally colder than my flesh, but there was no discomfort associated with that knowledge. Their temperature simply...was.

It was unfortunate.

Humans used cold - especially cold water - as a means of controlling feelings like lust. I had no such recourse and I needed it, because it seemed like everything Isobel did, no matter how small, somehow made me love her more. I shouldn't regard a mere list of questions so fondly, and yet I could picture the intense interest animating her features as she worked on it. I could hear her voice in every word. I could see her studying me - not as a curiosity, but as someone whose reality _mattered_ to her.

Because I mattered to her.

I couldn't remember anymore why I had wanted to avoid my room and Isobel's scent. I ran back home, praying to gods who probably wouldn't listen to a monster like me if I begged that my room still smelled enough of her that I might close my eyes and believe, if only for an instant, that she was still there.


	48. Chapter 47

Note: Sorry to disappear on all of you for so long, but I finally have a house! We haven't finished unpacking, but we did all our moving last week so at least that part is finished.

Classes start Monday. It's my last semester - which I guess means I can worry less about my grades? If I get like straight Cs, maybe I'll destroy any chance at grad school and so I won't ever be tempted...

Well, that won't happen, but it's nice to dream about not caring.

* * *

XLVII.

The highlight of my Friday was - _had_ to be - going to the Cullens' house and spending my afternoon with Edward. But, before that, I had a study group to set up.

Edward met me that morning beside Simone as I climbed down from her cab and, though I was eager to hear how his reconnaissance had gone, I took a moment to pull him down for a kiss. He looked amazing as, of course, he always did - but today he had thrown a dark brown leather jacket into the mix and...it kind of made me want to strip it off of him to see if it looked half as good on the nearest floor, especially once his button-up shirt and maybe even his tight charcoal-colored jeans were on top of it.

Which - was the kind of thought that made me glad Edward couldn't read my mind.

It was also the kind of thought that made me blush furiously the moment I realized _what_ I was thinking, though, and my blushes _weren't_ the kind of thing he was likely to let pass without comment. "What are you thinking?" he murmured, brushing his fingers across my red cheeks.

I stammered some excuse about still not being entirely accustomed to his proximity, and quickly changed the subject to the lack of proximity Ben and Angela were suffering from. It was pretty obvious I was diverting him, and he let me know that he knew it with a series of expressive eye-rolls. Didn't matter, though - I'd managed to avoid admitting to imagining him mostly naked. (A pursuit which admittedly had some difficulties. For instance, I knew now that Edward's body wasn't necessarily firm because of muscle. He wasn't - or, rather, _hadn't_ been back when he was human - as obviously into working out as Jake or Emmett, but he was lean and his body seemed well-proportioned. I wondered what that translated into in terms of, like, muscle definition and whether any of it might be put down to well-tailored clothing. And then there was body hair. He had hair on his head - thick hair - but never seemed to need a shave, so what about the rest of his body? Since it was winter and he was trying to blend in, I hadn't really seen his arms bare and up close, so I couldn't say. He didn't have a noticeable amount of hair on his hands, anyway, which argued that he wasn't incredibly hairy.)

"So you and Alice talked about Angela this morning," I prompted in a stern voice that hopefully made it clear to him I wasn't talking about (and clear to myself that I wasn't _thinking_ about) _any other subjects_.

Edward nodded with one of those expressive eye-rolls that let me know I wasn't fooling him.

"What did you talk about?" I demanded - the necessary next stage of the deployment of my "avoid admitting embarrassing things" strategy.

"The dance," he sighed, not quite rolling his eyes this time, but certainly studying the sky more intently than the very-predictable weather deserved, "and I'm certain Alice will thank you for that later. I had to sit and listen to her recount every last accessory every one of your friends is wearing."

"Yeah, well, you sold me out and agreed to shopping Sunday, so as far as I'm concerned we're _at best_ even," I replied without any sympathy.

"Hmmm," he said, studying me through narrowed eyes. "Worth it," he decided.

I smacked him. Ineffectively.

"What about Angela's date?" I asked, refocusing on the important thing here - which was helping my best friend.

"Alice explained in great detail how Brian was Jessica's choice for Angela as a means of ensuring everyone in the group was paired up with someone."

"Good," I sighed. "So - what does Ben think of her?"

"He doesn't _like_ her," Edward replied, one eyebrow raised skeptically, as though he wasn't certain what else I had expected. "He hardly knows her."

"Yes, that's what I'm trying to fix," I pointed out patiently. "What _does_ he think of her, though?"

Edward shrugged. "She seems nice and she strikes him as intelligent. He likes her appearance well enough, though he's under the impression that he's too short to appeal to a girl as tall as she is - or most girls in school. Or most _white_ girls generally. He's acutely aware of how feminized and desexualized Asian men are in popular culture."

"They are?" I asked before realizing that this was extraneous information that I didn't really need right now. "If Ben already thinks Angela is nice, smart, and pretty, he _practically_ likes her," I continued quickly. "All he needs is to find out that, first, those things are true and she has a great sense of humor on top of it, and that, second, _she's_ interested in _him_. After that it'll be a done deal."

"Probably, yes," Edward agreed a bit grudgingly.

He was so...unenthusiastic. Of course I had Alice if I _really_ needed enthusiasm, but...I dunno, maybe it would have been nice if he had at least _pretended_ some approval. "Why don't you want me to help them get together?" I asked.

"I don't want you to tie up one night every single week with a study group that takes you away from me," he grumbled in reply, which I supposed made sense, even if I still wished he would at least be happy because I was happy - at least if he couldn't manage being happy that Angela might end up happy. "I don't begrudge Angela any possible happiness," he said as though reading my mind - which I knew he wasn't, or he wouldn't have let my embarrassing thoughts pass earlier. "She's been a good friend to you. Which," he added thoughtfully, "is why Alice intends to come up with a reason to let her keep the jewelry she's borrowing for the dance."

"Oh," I said, "that's nice of her. I don't know if Angela will agree to it, though. It sounds like what she's borrowing is pretty expensive."

Edward simply _looked_ at me, eyebrows raised.

"For people who _aren't you guys_ ," I amended. "Obviously."

"Speaking of which," he said, smirking at me, "Rosalie just got a new laptop and gave me her old one to fix up for you."

"No," I told him firmly.

His smile just widened and he tucked my hand into the crook of his arm - and by the time he left me outside my classroom, I had lost the argument. The _first_ argument. It wasn't like I planned on quietly accepting the result just because he had argued me to a standstill _once_.

I was a little later than usual thanks to that first argument, so Alice, Jessica and Mike were already sitting down. They greeted me as I approached - I had apparently come at a good point in whatever conversation they were having, since Jessica immediately asked me _how I was doing_ (by which she of course meant "what have you and Edward been doing, together, while alone?" but I pretended not to understand that). Or, I supposed, Alice had engineered the conversation so that a lull would occur just as I appeared. She was watching me with barely-contained glee, so it seemed a reasonably likely guess.

"Actually," I told Jessica in response to the question I was deliberately misunderstanding, "I didn't do as well as I would have liked on my last math assignment," which was a lie - Alice had helped me with the last assignment, "and Angela is having trouble, too - and Mike, you are, too, right?"

He nodded a little warily.

"So Angela and I were talking, and we thought maybe we should start a study group. Jessica and Alice can tutor, and the other three of us can get help with our assignments. I figured we could host, too, and provide food and drinks, so that you two are getting something out it. Angela is already - "

"I think that is a _great_ idea," Jessica broke in with a sidelong glance at Mike.

"Yeah...I think it might be useful," Mike agreed, his wariness evaporating, giving Jessica a lopsided smile. "But, uh," he added, "what about your boyfriend? You know - Ed-Edward."

He said Edward's name like it tasted bad, and I carefully swallowed a frown. "Edward isn't in trig," I reminded him. Edward was also probably perfectly capable of tutoring, but whether the person he was tutoring would get anything out of it was fairly dependent on their sexual orientation. "The only problem I see is that we have three people who need tutoring but only two tutors. It would be better if we had a third. Do we know anyone else who's good at trig?"

"Not in our group…" Jessica began hesitantly.

"What about Ben Cheney?" Alice asked, perfectly on cue. "He always knows the answers when Mr. Varner asks, and I used to sit near him, you know - he gets good grades on the tests."

I shot Alice a grateful look. "I've heard he's nice," I added. "It can't hurt to ask. I'll go right now."

"Oh...okay," Jessica said, apparently surprised at how eager I was to settle everything, as I bounced out of my seat.

What she didn't know was that waiting wasn't really an option - Ben might not be intimidating, but an entire class period filled with frustrated excitement and anticipation was. I wanted to _know_ and I wanted to know _immediately_.

I approached the corner where he and his friend - well, crap, I didn't remember his friend's name, which was probably going to make this awkward. In any case, their conversation stopped as they both looked up, clearly surprised to see me advancing on them. I plopped down onto the chair of the desk that Alice used to use - before she started sitting with me - so that I wouldn't be looming over them. "Hey," I said, quickly deciding that, if I introduced myself, they would be forced to do the same, even though, between Charlie being the police chief and the rarity of new students, they would obviously know who I was. "We've never officially met. I'm Isobel Swan."

They exchanged a glance - I couldn't tell if it was more confused or curious. "We know," Ben's friend said. "I'm Austin and this is Ben - you know, in case you haven't memorized everyone in the school yet."

Austin - that was it. Austin...Marks? Something like that. Angela had mentioned him in passing once or twice. "I'm doing pretty well for only being a month in," I told them, "but I know who you are, too." Well, more or less - or, rather, more _and_ less. Ben more, Austin less. They didn't need to know that, though. "Sorry to just sort of drop in on you out of the blue. I have a...proposition, I guess, for Ben. Or maybe it's more asking a favor - I'm not sure."

Ben's eyes widened a little behind his glasses, giving me the sudden impression that, whatever each of them had thought I might be doing there, Ben had never even considered the possibility that it might have anything to do with him. "Uh, okay," he said, stumbling slightly over the words. "What is it?"

"Alice, Jessica, Mike, Angela and I are trying to set up a study group for trig, because Mike, Angela and I could all use some help, and Alice and Jessica know what they're doing enough to give it to us. Two tutors to three students isn't ideal, though, and we noticed that you're pretty good at this stuff. We wondered if you'd be willing to help out? It doesn't pay very well, but those of us being tutored will take turns feeding our tutors."

Ben spent another moment staring at me - long enough for Austin to laugh and thump him on the shoulder. " _Jesus_. Who knew that it would be your _math_ skills that would get you in with the popular kids? How the hell is that fair?"

The - wait, the _what_? "The _popular_ kids?" I repeated, unable to quite wrap my head around being considered part of a group that consisted of kids others considered popular. "They aren't the - I mean, they _aren't_ the popular kids, are they?" Then again - I hadn't really noticed _any_ groups here in Forks quite like those I had thought of as popular back in Phoenix.

My confusion seemed to make Ben feel somehow more at ease and he relaxed, though it was still Austin who answered, obviously amused by my lack of self-awareness. "No, _you_ are definitely the popular kids." His emphasis on the second-person pronoun made me realize that I hadn't included myself in my earlier question. "It's not like you see in the movies around here," he went on lightly, "but Mike has always hung out with Tyler and Brian and any other guys who have even the slightest interest the typical jock-ish pursuits of sports and crappy beer. Then there's Jessica and Lauren, presiding over their group of gossip girls. Now that you've come along and somehow incorporated the Cullens, you've even got the beautiful, disdainful people. So, yeah, you guys stand out pretty clearly as the popular group."

"Oh," I replied intelligently. "That's so…" the warning bell cut me off, and I waited until it was done to finish my thought, "...weird." I had always assumed that popular people were conscious of their popularity. Everyone I would have considered popular back in my old school had seemed _intensely_ self-conscious. "Okay, well," I continued, shaking off my shock and addressing myself to Ben again, "the study group would just be once a week. Think it over and let me know."

"No need - I'll do it," Ben said quickly. A glint of humor entered his expression. "Your promise of food won me over - all my mom keeps on hand for snacking is dried seaweed and edamame."

"True story," Austin agreed feelingly. "His mom is a health nut. I'm surprised it hasn't _driven_ him nuts. Or me."

"You're already nuts, so who would even be able to tell?" Ben shot back before returning his attention to me. "Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons would work best for me."

"Great," I tried not to say too enthusiastically as I also tried not grin too hugely, thinking of how terrified and delighted Angela was going to be. "I'll see what works for everyone else and get back to you. And, hey," I said to Austin, "if you want to come along for some company while you do your homework, consider the invitation open."

His eyes widened. "Oh - that's - okay, uh, thanks."

I wasn't sure why he was so shocked - it would have been a little weird if I had asked Ben to hang out with us without somehow including his friend who was _right there_. It wasn't until I started back to my own chair that I began to understand - behind me, Austin hissed something to Ben about "the stunningly adorable Alice Cullen." Ben laughed and reminded him that she still had a boyfriend. I ducked my head to hide my smile, wondering if Alice was aware that she had an admirer.

Probably - between Edward and her own super-hearing, it was unlikely to have slipped past her.

I managed to get Angela alone before lunch to let her know that the study group was beginning to take shape - which I was glad for when she immediately blushed, and then just as quickly went deathly pale before blushing furiously again. If I had waited to announce it in Jessica's presence, there was no way her quick eyes would have missed Angela's reaction. I wasn't about to let Angela's wistful crush _get_ crushed under the weight of Jessica's too-interested scrutiny.

I wished, as she gripped my hands too tightly, that I could reassure her that Ben already thought she was pretty and smart, but that would have required revealing sources since it wasn't like Ben and I hung out. "It's going to be fine," I told her instead. "You don't even have to talk to him this first time."

"Right," she agreed faintly. "That's right."

"It _is_ right," I reassured her. "Just remember to be yourself - you don't even need to be yourself _at him_ yet, just generally. You'll be fine."

"Right, fine." she repeated, and then sighed and closed her eyes, a rueful expression settling on her face. "Who am I again?"

"My best friend, among other things. You'll figure it out - eventually, if not right away. That's the point of the study group, right? To let you be around Ben long enough to start acting like yourself without being in the spotlight from the very first."

"Yes, that is the point. And it's a good point. A very good point." She squeezed my hands. "I...think I may be excited?"

Her uncertainty made me laugh. "What's not to be excited about?" I asked, and then added, before she could reply or overthink it, "Come on, if we don't go to lunch Jessica might come looking for us."

Over lunch we hashed out which day was preferable for the group - the consensus was Tuesday - before moving on to other subjects. Angela and I didn't get a chance to talk again until Spanish, and even that was curtailed by Edward's presence, but it seemed like Angela was settling more and more into "excited," even if it was a nervous excitement. All that was left was to let Ben know which day we had chosen, which I did after school. Since it was my idea, I volunteered to host first and sent out a group text to that effect, and then we were ready to go.

Edward wasn't particularly pleased, but he didn't try to talk me out of anything - instead he opened up the argument about Rosalie's laptop again as I drove to his house. I wondered if Alice had been peeking at my future and passing on information, or if he was just getting to know me well enough to understand that I would of course want to argue more.

The second argument was still in good fun - even though I lost again - but the third started to become a bit uncomfortable. I wasn't certain whether it was because Alice got involved, or if the prospect of accepting what was probably a very expensive computer simply started to feel more real - especially once I lost yet again. I mean - obviously I was being dumb. If my arguments held water, I wouldn't have kept on losing.

On the other hand -

Well, okay, so I knew what my real objection was, and I knew why I wasn't offering it, too. My mom's First Rule of Relationships - "always leave yourself a way out" - didn't really apply in this situation. In the first place, there _was_ no way out, so the whole thing was moot from the start. In the second, the psychological burden incurred by giving and receiving gifts (which Renee had lectured me about time and again) probably wasn't even real when it came to Edward. The money Edward was spending on me wasn't actually his. As I understood it, the family fortune was cultivated and managed by _Alice_ , so anything I received from him was just as much a gift from her, even leaving aside the detail that, in this case, Rosalie had owned the laptop and he was just fixing it up a bit for me.

Renee's prime directive still had real emotional heft - enough that I found it a struggle to throw it out entirely.

A struggle? No - that was wrong. I _couldn't_ throw it out entirely. The best I could do was try to ignore the burden of it.

I took a deep breath, shoved the unease aside again, and tried to focus on the _incredibly_ stupid paper I needed to finish for my government class.

Though I managed to work for a while, eventually Edward caught my attention again - not because of anything he was doing intentionally distract me, but just because it was sort of fascinating watching his hands flit with inhuman speed over the laptop pieces he had spread out over his ottoman. From what I had read, it was dangerous to handle electronics bare-handed because of the possibility for errant static sparks to mess up the circuitry. One way to minimize the problem was to work in just one's underwear with a piece of metal nearby for periodic grounding.

Edward (alas) wasn't in his underwear, and he didn't seem concerned about grounding himself. It made me wonder if his body conducted electricity like a human body, or if it was - somehow - inert. Given how cold he felt, I thought that was unlikely - good heat conductors, generally speaking, conducted other types of energy well, too, and if he felt cold to me, it meant he was conducting heat away from my body to his. But if vampire-body-stuff _was_ somehow an exceptionally poor conductor of electricity...maybe vampires had an especially good reason to remain hidden from humans. How much would humans value the lives of blood-sucking murderers if their flesh turned out to be some kind of super-insulator?

Eww, that was a disgusting thought.

Edward caught me staring off into space instead of doing my homework, which precipitated an argument loosely based around arguing - and somehow or other I ended up in his lap.

 _I_ was just playing, but somehow it became the worst lead-in ever for our first conversation about sex - which was a conversation it turned out we needed to have, because apparently vampires _did_ have sex.

A lot of sex by the sound of it.

Which made me wonder - well, obviously I was Edward's first and only mate, but had he ever - ?

And - was I hoping that he had or that he hadn't? Because, uh - it might be nice if _one_ of us had firsthand knowledge of what we were doing - _going_ to do - going to do _eventually_ \- but, then again, that would mean there was some other woman out there who had -

I was _so_ not ready for this conversation.

Still, I at least somehow managed, through my blushing, to let him know I wasn't ready, which I felt terrible about now that I knew he probably _was_ ready - maybe _more_ than ready, especially if there hadn't been anyone else and he had just been waiting for like a hundred years to find his mate and oh my God that wasn't what had happened - _was_ happening - right? Surely he had - with _someone_ \- even if thinking about her hypothetical existence _did_ make me want to kick her perfect vampire shins.

Anyway...we stopped talking after my catastrophe of a confession. It was - it was for the best.

I managed to finish my paper, but it was a good thing the topic was so stupid, because the bullshit I was writing wasn't fit for a topic that _wasn't_ stupid. Every time I made the mistake of looking at Edward, I felt a fresh wave of embarrassment and shame, sometimes tinged with just a little anger. I mean - how was I supposed to know how vampires felt about sex? Sure, _some_ of their desires were really close to what a human might feel, but from the outside the ways the similarities and differences mapped was completely unpredictable. And, yeah, Edward wasn't blaming me - at least not out loud - but he was reserved in a way that made me think maybe he _did_ blame me and just wasn't admitting it, maybe not even to himself.

And how dumb was I, not even thinking that my thoughts about sex might affect Edward, too?

I should have _asked_.

I lectured myself all the way home while my brain helpfully came up with other instances of stunning social ineptitude. By the time I pulled up outside the house, I was actually squirming with discomfort. "I'm so _stupid_ ," I told Simone, pulling out the key and burying my hands in my hair.

At the moment, I couldn't come up with any reasons for anyone to like me, and I felt sorry for Edward and his supernatural compulsions.

A groan escaped me as I slumped against Simone's door, trying to imagine that she was actually a person and actually, you know, _alive_ , and that she had any power to comfort me. When I opened my eyes, though, they fell on the laptop, now resting on the passenger's seat, which Edward had managed to press on me without eliciting even a token protest. I realized Simone and I weren't alone. Having the laptop there felt like having another person - a virtual stranger - in the truck, listening in on everything I said.

I spent a moment eyeing it resentfully before sighing and deciding that I would have to come to terms with it sometime. Might as well be now.

The laptop was covered in a (presumably plastic) shell designed to look like wood. (I was reasonably certain it was too lightweight to be _real_ wood, though the pattern and material were so good that it was hard to tell even once I touched it-maybe it was a real wood veneer with some lacquer on top?) That alone surprised me a little - Rosalie didn't strike me as a "natural materials" kind of person. In the center was a circle that looked like an inlay of lighter wood, and within that - in the same kind of "wood" - was a stylized rose, obviously playing off of Rosalie's name. It was all very elegant and tasteful.

"I should name you," I told the laptop. Other "rose" names came immediately to mind, but that seemed too obvious. Instead I began mentally searching for something literary that seemed to fit. "What about...Persephone?" I said thoughtfully. "I mean, you lived a glamorous life with Rosalie, who's _practically_ a goddess, until you were exiled to Hades to live with me, right? But you'll still get to see Rosalie periodically since I'm her brother's mate, so it's exile, but not _complete_ exile." The laptop raised no objection, so apparently she agreed with my assessment of the situation.

Deciding on a name somehow made Persephone more acceptable - a new acquaintance rather than an intrusive gift - and that, in turn, left me feeling more free to talk out my problems. Sometimes talking out loud helped, even if my machines weren't _really_ listening. It was the best I could do at the moment, since it was probably too late to call Angela.

Er, well - and I wasn't certain how Angela would feel about talking about sex.

"I have been operating under the assumption," I announced to my inanimate audience, "that what turns me on also turns other people on, and just because I'm not aroused by something, the person with me isn't, either. Which makes me an idiot."

My eyes fell on Persephone again. "And I can't even accept a gift from my boyfriend without doing elaborate mental gymnastics." My fingers found their way into my hair again. "I'm honestly a little surprised right now that I let Charlie give me Simone." Renee's rule for herself was "no gifts over fifty dollars," because the sense of obligation was just too great if it was more than that. Accordingly, she and Phil had bought each _other_ engagement rings, both under fifty bucks. It happened that Renee liked turquoise, so hers was set with that. Phil's favorite color was yellow, so she had found a reasonably manly ring set with topaz for him. They didn't have wedding rings.

Six months into their marriage, she had agreed to double their mutual gift allowance, but it still existed.

For me...well, Renee wasn't into telling me what I could and couldn't do, but her advice had always been this: "don't accept anything worth more than you could afford to pay back," "don't accept anything from anyone you don't trust _completely_ ," and "even if you trust someone completely, never let yourself think you can't live without them."

All that probably made her sound a little nuts, but she had really good reasons for being paranoid, especially when it came to money. My childhood, in spite of my parents being split up and the fact that Renee and I spent most of it teetering on the edge of financial meltdown, had been roses and puppies compared to my mom's. After her father left them when she was a toddler, her mother had been willing to - and had done - literally anything for money. Then she had found Jesus and married Renee's stepfather...and she had _still_ done literally anything for money, the "anything" had just changed from odd jobs, prostitution, and petty theft to being the perfect - absolutely _perfect_ \- wife. Well - that was about religion and power, too, but money was all bound up in those other two things.

He had money and power, and religion said he deserved them.

She didn't have either, and religion said she should be dependent and grateful.

And...after what Charlie had told me put together with things Renee had _almost_ said, I had the feeling that maybe he had tried to use money against her, too. Not - in a mean, vindictive way, but because he would have been concerned about her ability to take care of herself and me, and he would have wanted us to come back. But for Renee, it would have felt like he was trying to trap her.

So...I understood all of that and Renee's perspective was heart-breakingly logical given her past. But tonight I was suddenly tired of letting what was right for her dictate what was right for _me_.

I reached out and picked up Persephone, my fingers trailing lovingly over the beautiful shell. Ironically, it was also my mother who had taught me that when I gave a gift, giving it for any other reason than because I wanted to was fundamentally wrong in the way that few other things were. If she was careful not to give extravagant gifts, it was only because she wanted to spare other people the sense of obligation she would have felt in their places. She gave small gifts freely - maybe too freely given the realities of her financial situation before she landed her current job - and I had learned to do the same.

My fingers moved to trace the rose design on Persephone's shell. "You were given to me as freely as if you had cost ten dollars instead of - well, probably a hundred times that, knowing the Cullens," I told her, trying my hardest to believe it. Edward wouldn't give me something with the intention of calling in favors later. He _wouldn't_.

I couldn't make myself feel it - not yet. My mother's unease was still there, coiled in my stomach, but I decided to let Persephone serve as a symbol. Whenever I looked at her and felt uneasy, I would remind myself that, after all, it was statistically probable that there were other people with beliefs like those Renee had instilled in me elsewhere in the world, and so Edward being one of them was not in any way strange or particularly unlikely.

Besides, even if he hadn't been like us before before he and I had met, he was now. The only thing he ever seemed to spend time calculating was how to make my life easier. There was no catch; there was never a catch. He just wanted my happiness.

Maybe I didn't know how to trust that yet, but anything was possible with enough practice.

Right?

Persephone and Simone didn't have any answers, but it didn't matter. I had to believe it was the truth because I didn't have any other good options.


	49. Chapter 48

Note: It feels like I do a lot of writing, but I think it's just because I have a lot less free time. For one thing, it turns out that getting a house makes everyone want to socialize with you more. Or...maybe all my friends and family are tired of me putting strict limits on socializing because of school, and I'm getting tired of saying no to almost everything.

Well, some of it is definitely the house. My husband and I spend a significant part of every weekend researching composting methods, plants, septic tanks (we have one), and I don't even know what else, and wandering around Home Depot.

I also have this internship that I can't totally half-ass like I do my classes at least 50% of the time, because it's based on the number of hours I put in and not the degree to which I can convince my professor that I actually did read that book that I absolutely didn't read. (Hey, I've written some pretty stinking good papers about books I didn't read beyond a few chapters looking for quotes supporting my argument.)

All this is to say: I'm trying to write, I really am. I just don't have _time_.

* * *

XLVIII.

Isobel had been staring out the passenger-side window for the last sixteen minutes and twenty-two - twenty-three - seconds. I couldn't tell how she felt - she seemed restless, shifting often in her seat and frequently bouncing her leg before stopping short, as though suddenly becoming conscious of what she was doing. She wasn't angry at me, at least I didn't think she was - though she had been circumspect in front of her father, she hadn't hesitated in taking the hand I offered her.

"I named the laptop," Isobel said abruptly and without turning away from the window, breaking sixteen minutes and forty-eight seconds of silence.

She seemed to think a name for the laptop I had given her was significant, but I wasn't certain why. "Did you name it Macbeth?" I asked.

She did turn toward me at that, her lips drawn down in a frown. "No, of course not. That was a joke. You didn't think I was _serious_?"

I honestly hadn't given it enough consideration to think anything about it. "Of course not," I said, deciding that discretion about my lack of attention to something she obviously thought important was less likely to produce consequences I would rather avoid. "What did you name it?"

"Persephone," she replied.

I felt my brows draw together in confusion and shot her a questioning look. "The queen of Hades?"

"She was the daughter of Demeter before she was abducted by Hades," Isobel reminded me unnecessarily - and without materially illuminating the reasons for her choice.

"Are...you comparing Rosalie to Demeter and yourself to Hades?" I hazarded, certain that I was wrong but unable to find another way to put together the information she had emphasized.

To my surprise, she gave a quick, sharp nod. "I figured it was appropriate."

I snorted. "You don't know Rosalie very well. And you didn't abduct the laptop. If anything, you rescued it. I can promise you that Rose didn't care half as much about it as you will - as you already _do_."

"Well...maybe," she allowed hesitantly, "but I'm sure living with Rosalie was much more glamorous than living with me will be."

"And I'm certain Hades made an attempt at making the underworld glamorous enough to captivate Persephone," I returned, "but that doesn't mean she didn't long to return to Demeter."

"So you're proposing a kind of reverse of the story of Persephone," Isobel said thoughtfully, before a sly smile stole across her lips. "Is she still my lover in your version?"

I couldn't quite suppress my growl, even though I knew we were, first, discussing a damned _laptop_ , and that, additionally, Isobel was intentionally baiting me. She ducked her head to hide her laughter at my involuntary response.

"Didn't you have questions for me?" I demanded, a little more embarrassed than I was willing to admit.

"Yes," she agreed, "but I'm trying to say something here and totally sucking at it."

Her cheeks reddened as I took her in through a series of short glances that didn't pull my eyes from the road for too long, but she didn't elaborate for a long moment. "You're not saying it any better now," I finally pointed out, trying to keep my impatience under control and largely failing.

She pulled one leg up, hugging her knee against her chest. "I'm - I named Persephone so that she would be...more mine, I guess. So I'm trying to say that I-I'm sorry I wasn't more gracious about accepting her in the first place. I'm going to try to be better about that."

The connections she made between subjects were so _strange_ \- I never would have guessed that the largely-opaque conversation we had just shared was leading to an apology. "I understand wanting to retain your independence," I reassured her. "Don't forget that I lived through decades of time in which a woman's choice of husband was the most important economic decision she was entitled to make, besides being about incidental issues like raising children. Given Western social history, I'm more surprised that young women still allow men to buy them dinner or gifts at all than that there are those, like you, who would prefer not to accept such gifts."

Isobel, when I glanced at her, was staring at me with open surprise. "That's not - I mean, that's an interesting point - I hadn't ever considered that marriage _was_ once as much an economic decision as anything else - but that's not why it's hard for me." Her face clouded. "Or at least - " She shook her head, and her expression smoothed. "No, it doesn't matter. Renee _seems_ like a totally carefree New Age hippy, but she has a whole set of personal rules to help her feel safe. One is that you muddle through on your own, and don't accept help - especially in the form of gifts - from other people."

I felt my eyebrows lift in surprise and glanced at Isobel. Her jaw was set mulishly.

"Of course I've known since I was about four that it's ninety percent bullshit - I help her get out of the crazy crap she blunders into _all the time_ and she never makes even a token protest." Isobel dropped her head and hit her nose gently against her drawn-up knee. "Somehow it still got under my skin, though - some of it. Maybe because, I don't know - maybe because she's always treated _herself_ as hopelessly flawed, but me - I'm the smart one. The strong one. The perfect daughter who won't ever let her down and can be everything she always wished she could be."

"You sound bitter," I commented, thinking privately that it was about time - maybe it was prejudice on my part, but I had never understood the seemingly blind adoration Isobel displayed when speaking of her mother.

"She _adores_ me," Isobel groaned in an echo of my own thoughts about her feelings. "Sometimes, though, I don't _want_ to be adored. I want to be - I don't know-"

"Seen?" I suggested.

" _Yes_ ," she agreed fervently.

I reached across the console and claimed her hand, curling my fingers around her smaller, warmer ones, attempting to silently reassure her that, even if I didn't see her clearly _yet_ , my image of her was daily coming into better focus - and I had no desire to ever look away. She turned her head to give me a smile that was at least half a grimace. "Charlie sees you, I think," I offered.

"Mostly," she allowed, before adding with a tolerant sigh: "He doesn't talk much about what he sees, though."

We lapsed into silence, perhaps both reflecting on what Isobel had just revealed about herself. I wondered if she realized the precise enormity of the revelation, and somehow doubted it. Perhaps she, herself, failed to see within her backwards relationship with her mother the underpinnings of so many of her other quirks and foibles. Her near-fanatical dedication to privacy was suddenly revealed as perfectly reasonable: how else was she to remain sane as the naturally - and inevitably - flawed daughter of a woman who relied on her for perfection? The wonder was, perhaps, that she had managed at all - somehow she had contrived to reach the entirely correct conclusion that her mother's ideal was not only impossible to attain but absurd even to reach for. She conducted her own private inner life while continuing to shelter her mother from what she no doubt considered a potentially devastating truth. I just didn't know how the credit ought to be divided up: how much of Isobel's sense was simply a consequence of who she was, and how much was owed to Charlie's relatively clear-sighted understanding of his daughter's strengths and weaknesses?

Isobel broke the silence - and interrupted my reflections-abruptly: "Now that that's out of the way, are you ready for an in-depth conversation about vampire procreation?"

I glanced at her - her tone was too upbeat, too cheerful. Was she uncomfortable criticizing her mother or uncomfortable acknowledging that she couldn't be - didn't even want to be - perfectly self-assured and entirely self-sufficient?

Perhaps it was some of both.

I wanted to tell her that she didn't need to wear that mask anymore - certainly not with me - but, then, who was I to tell her what she did or didn't need? She had given me, even if half-unwittingly, a piece of herself that I didn't think many people knew about. I could attempt to reciprocate by satisfying her curiosity as far as I was able.

I flashed her a smirk. "I'm always ready to talk about vampire procreation. It's a short conversation, no matter how in-depth: we _don't_ procreate. You've already heard about the only means available for continuing the species."

Isobel nodded, looking thoughtful but unsurprised. "I guessed as much. After all, why change people violently if you could reproduce sexually? What else did I ask about?"

"Eye color," I replied, starting at the top of the list I had memorized. "We don't actually know why it varies, or what pigments are involved. Vampires that drink human blood have red eyes, while 'vegetarians' all have yellow. The varying brightness between feedings is the same for all of us, though."

"You've _never_ had a chance to dissect a vampire eye and find out what pigments are there? Even though you've lived for so long? And Carlisle is a doctor?"

"I'm technically a doctor, too," I pointed out, "just not currently practicing. And yes, you could easily say that we've never had the chance to dissect an eye, because - and this gets into what we're made of, in case you're keeping track - "

"No," she interrupted, " _you're_ keeping track."

"Then _because_ I'm keeping track," I corrected myself. "We don't know what we're made of. It doesn't...you might say it doesn't isolate well in laboratory conditions."

"Why is that?" she demanded.

"Because any part of us severed from our heads turns instantly to ash."

Her mouth dropped open in shock, and I went on quickly, uncertain whether to be amused or concerned by her expression, but leaning toward amusement.

"It's the skull or brain, really, more than the head generally - and don't ask what happens if you cut a vampire's brain in half. I've never heard of anyone splitting open a vampire's skull - whatever our skulls are made of, it's remarkably tough. It doesn't cut, though it does burn."

She was still staring at me in something like horror, chilling my humor somewhat, though I pressed on regardless. I wasn't the one who had passed me an entire page of questions, after all.

"That's how you kill a vampire, by the way: cut off," or, I almost added before deciding that it was probably more incredibly violent information than Isobel needed, save your cutting edge and _rip_ off, "the head and burn it. You can also burn the whole body, but it's a bit like coal and takes some time and heat to catch, so there's a good chance that if you leave your vampire with a body, he or she will put out the fire before it can get going."

Isobel took a deep breath. "Oh my God. Have you _done_ that? No - don't answer that one. What - what happens if a vampire has his body - er - _removed_ , but then his mate saves him? Is - is he just... _like_ that?"

"Our bodies - or any parts we've lost - sort of, hm, reappear after about six hours."

"Oh," Isobel replied, sounding somewhere between relieved and faint.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

"This is just a little horrifying to think about," she answered, "especially since the only vampires I know are very nice and - and it's not pleasant to think about anything like this hap-happening to any of you."

"You don't need to think about it," I reassured her quickly. "We're not easy prey. Our abilities - Alice's and mine - make us formidable to begin with, and very few covens are as large as our family. Being vegetarian means that we can live together in a larger group more easily - with less suspicion. Then, too, Carlisle believes that subsisting on animal blood may foster more human-like social impulses - though the causality may be reversed. It may be that only the most socially-inclined vampires ever take the step of giving up human blood." Jasper's case provided evidence for causality flowing in the direction Carlisle hypothesized, but he was only one individual.

Isobel took another deep breath. "When you say vampire bodies - or whatever - _reappear_ …"

"I mean _reappear_ ," I stressed. "Or perhaps - coalesce? There is a short period of time in which they're not - entirely - _there_."

"Somehow this part is weirder than the fact that there are vampires to begin with," Isobel told me, hugging herself and rubbing her arms.

"Are you cold?" I asked.

"I'm freaked out and a little disgusted thanks to the lesson on how to murder vampires," she replied. "You probably could have left that part off."

"You wanted to know a few days ago," I reminded her.

"I was _joking_ ," she returned. "And I didn't know what I was asking."

I forbore pointing out that I, equally, hadn't known she would be disgusted - after all, there was no blood. We simply turned to ash and blew away. Instead I turned up the heat a notch to make sure she wasn't cold.

"So...what's that ash made of?" Isobel asked, as though she _hadn't_ just admonished me for telling her too much.

I shook my head at her. "Carbon, just like any ash, but - as far as we've been able to tell with the limited samples we've collected - without even trace contaminants."

"Do I even want to know how you've _collected samples_?" Isobel asked.

"Carlisle and I cut off the ends of our fingers," I answered in spite of her dubious tone. "We don't register physical pain quite the way humans do - or perhaps we can ignore it more completely. Carlisle and I have done a great deal worse to ourselves in pursuit of understanding what we are."

"Don't tell me about it," she entreated. "At least not now. So - so your hair, then - it's always that length? If you cut it, it just regrows?"

I ran my hand through said hair. "Well - no. Hair is a bit different. I mean - we think it's the same material - more or less - but it behaves differently. Our hair grows very slowly - maybe a quarter or half an inch in a year. It's more firmly attached to us than human hair, but it can be pulled out, and so it's good that it grows, or we would all be bald. All of us already have thinner hair than we did in life."

"Yours seems thick enough," Isobel commented, reaching up to rub a strand between her fingers.

"It was thicker before I turned," I assured her, memories of the daily chore of trying to wrestle a comb through my hair surfacing dimly as I spoke. "We're not certain _why_ hair is different. Carlisle believes it may have something to do with the fact that, though the follicle is living, human hair is dead material. We aren't certain why that makes a difference, but, then, we don't even know what we're made of." I shrugged. What we _didn't_ know about ourselves would fill many more volumes than what we _did_ know.

"I suppose," Isobel said thoughtfully, still toying with my hair, "that if you don't know what you're made of, you probably don't know how your metabolism works."

"No, we don't," I agreed. "We do know a little about our venom, though. The chemical composition doesn't explain the...ultimate outcome following exposure…"

"So you can't explain the precise process by which people become vampires," Isobel interrupted, withdrawing her hand with a snort. "Why am I not surprised?"

"Because you're intelligent," I shot back. "Of course we can't explain it. What we are isn't...natural. What we have _is_ venom, though - there are some proteolytic enzymes involved that, on injection, immediately begin indiscriminately destroying cells - not unlike rattlesnake venom. In addition to that, the venom contains enough phenol and cyanide to give the average human an unpleasant rash following contact with the skin."

"So don't open my mouth while kissing you," she summed up with a shiver. "Got it."

"What you do with your mouth doesn't matter nearly as much as what I do with mine," I pointed out, finding that, as much as I sometimes wanted Isobel to respect the danger I represented, I didn't actually want her to be _afraid_ of me. "I will, of course, avoid exposing you to my venom."

"What if I accidentally swallowed it?" she wondered.

"It depends on how much you swallowed and whether it found your bloodstream before being denatured by your body's defenses," I answered. "A small amount _probably_ wouldn't do you serious damage, but it wouldn't be comfortable, either. I'll be careful, Isobel."

She flashed me a sudden smile. "I'm not worried about it. I asked purely out of morbid curiosity."

I rolled my eyes. "So you're morbidly curious about what my venom will do to you, but vampire deaths are crossing a line?"

"Look, I just didn't expect a conversation about what your body is made of to slide quite so quickly into decapitation and incineration, okay? I'm fine now, so if you want to go back to telling me about it, feel free."

I couldn't tell whether or not this was bravado, so I declined. Besides, all I really had left to tell her about were the exploratory surgeries Carlisle and I had performed on ourselves, and I thought that might bother her more than she was prepared for. "I think your next unanswered question was about the oldest vampires we know of," I told her.

Her immediate spark of interest made me glad I had chosen not to pursue the previous subject any further.

"Vampires have a...society, of sorts, and its rulers are the Volturi. They're the oldest vampires we currently know of, and the oldest of them was born perhaps as early as 1200 BCE - dates of births and deaths aren't easy to pin down that far back."

Isobel nodded, still looking rapt.

"The Volturi may be the oldest currently-living vampires, but they killed off many - we believe all or nearly all - vampires older than Caius - the eldest of them - during their ascent to power. That occurred between the second and third century CE." I hesitated for a moment, wondering if I should tell her about the beliefs Carlisle and I shared regarding vampires' supposed immortality. We didn't have anything other than the most circumstantial evidence - at least not yet - but...if there was a possibility it might curb Isobel's desire to become a vampire herself, it was information she ought to have, even if it was, at the moment, no more than speculation and educated guesses. "The Volturi - there are three leaders who were created within two centuries of each other - have, in the last hundred fifty years or so, started undergoing some physical changes. Carlisle first noticed that Caius no longer spoke with the power he once had - his voice sounded breathy, though of course we can't know where the precise change has occurred. Aro has since started sound the same way - that change I have been observing myself. Marcus, the youngest, we don't know about, because he almost never speaks."

"What _could_ breathiness indicate?" Isobel asked.

I hesitated again, wondering if I should tell her about the surgeries after all. "We speculate that their vocal chords may be become more rigid and therefore more difficult to vibrate, and they may additionally have reduced lung capacity."

"Why do you think that?" she asked.

Well - she wasn't going to believe my conclusion without the evidence of the "educated" in my "educated guesses," so I didn't have much choice, did I? I spent a moment trying to decide how to lead into it. "Isobel, do you know how human doctors originally came to understand human anatomy?"

"Yeah, of course," she answered. "They dissected people. _Usually_ dead people."

"Vampires don't...have corpses to dissect," I pointed out. "So - "

She gasped. "You _vivi -_ "

"Of course not!" I cut her off. "Of course not. Carlisle would _never_ agree to vivisection - certainly not on unwilling subjects. He wouldn't even do it to me when I _volunteered_."

"You _what_?!" she yelled, turning to face me. "That's crazy! You don't _volunteer_ for vivisection!"

"I did," I pointed out mildly. "I told you: vampires experience pain differently than humans. It's upsetting, I know - I would be _furious_ if you offered yourself for anything half so harrowing, even taking into account my unconventional relationship to pain. I didn't have a mate to be protective of me, though, and I was as curious as he was…" I shrugged, offering her a sheepish half-smile. "It seemed a good plan at the time."

"Remind me to thank Carlisle," she muttered.

"Mmm, it would be best if you didn't mention it," I cautioned her. "Esme doesn't know about what he - what _we_ \- did next."

"What did you do?" Isobel demanded.

"Carlisle decided to perform surgery on _himself_ ," I told her. "On his arm, to be precise, since he could see it fairly easily and reach it without contorting himself into strange positions. He tried to stop me from doing the same, but a sample size of one is nearly as useless as a sample size of zero. Moreover, I'm considerably younger than he is, so comparing my results to his had the potential to give us insights into how vampires change as they age."

Isobel stared at me for a moment and even though I couldn't read her thoughts, I could see her struggling to hold on to her anger in the face of her natural curiosity. "What did you learn?" she finally asked - grudgingly.

I leaned across the center console to whisper conspiratorially: "Vampire flesh dulls even the most expensive scalpels very, very quickly."

She stared at me for a moment, wide-eyed, before finally giving a little unwilling snort of laughter. "Do scalpels cut you at all?"

"With considerable effort and difficulty, though not as cleanly as one might wish. We still made a whole host of interesting discoveries. For instance, the - what you might call the _process_ of becoming a vampire doesn't stop just because one is functionally a vampire. Whatever we're made of, it isn't...all uniformly what it is. It can be more or less dense, tough and flexible or rigid and comparatively brittle. The texture is all the same - or too similar even for our senses to differentiate - but all those different tissues that existed when we were human still have analogues now that we've changed."

"What do you mean by the _process_ of becoming a vampire?" Isobel asked.

"Well - this is only a guess, but the structures in Carlisle's arm were observably less differentiated than those in my own - it was as though muscle, bone, connective tissue and blood vessels were all beginning to melt together. It was visible in my arm, too, but much more advanced in his. It seemed like...the rigid and brittle 'tissue' was the one that our flesh tended toward over time, assuming that the differences we saw occurred based on time - which seems like a good guess, but - "

"But your sample size is miniscule and non-random," Isobel supplied for me, waving her hand to urge me to go on with my explanation.

"If we're right and our findings can be generalized to all vampires, the Volturi may be beginning to show what happens when all our flesh becomes too rigid. Drawing in air, for instance, depends on the lungs being expandable - the ribcage has to expand to allow all the little alveoli to expand in turn as they fill with air. If the alveoli become rigid - or, worse, become an undifferentiated slab of flesh without any hollow cavities at all…" I shrugged, knowing that she would get the picture.

"So you think - what? That at the very end of the process, vampires die?" she asked. "I thought you didn't need to breathe."

"Death wouldn't come from a lack of vital compounds," I told her, perhaps fudging the truth a little. Still - there would be time to introduce her to the more...metaphysical aspects of our existence later. I wanted to feel out her religious beliefs first so that I would know how to approach the subject. "Death would come either in the form of betrayal or mercy. Consider how many of a human body's processes _require_ a certain amount of flexibility. If a vampire became entirely rigid, it's unlikely he or she would be able to move, speak or feed."

She shivered. "Alright, I get the point - I guess they would remain conscious, too, just completely unable to do...anything."

"Perhaps," I replied. "Remember no one, as far as I know, has opened a vampire's skull. We don't know what's happening in there. But it's a good guess - nothing else seems to affect our consciousness."

"How long do you think they - these Volturi - have?" she asked.

"We don't know," I answered. "Carlisle and I don't see them very often - perhaps once a decade, or a little less. And of course we can't question them on their experiences. There are some other signs - a little stiffness of movement, perhaps, and their flesh begins to look oddly translucent. But none of them have admitted to any changes. Maybe they haven't noticed." I doubted that, but vampires were as susceptible to denial as humans.

"Well," Isobel said slowly, "even if the oldest of them were to drop dead tomorrow, almost three thousand years isn't anything to complain about."

"I suppose," I said, startled. "But - " It was a struggle, but I bit back the rest of my objection.

"But?" Isobel repeated curiously.

"But...there are drawbacks," I temporized.

"None worth dying over that I can see," she snorted. "And I mean that literally."

"Something that isn't alive can't truly die," I muttered, glowering at the highway ahead.

"Oh _please_ ," Isobel responded. "You're alive in every way that _matters_. Heartbeats and respiration and all only matter in the support of _consciousness_. If you can have consciousness without all of it, so much the better - there's less that can go wrong."

I sighed and let it go, beginning to understand why Alice was so certain that Isobel wasn't going to remain human. She seemed to have no attachment at all to the trappings of humanity, and that might very well extend to her soul - provided she even believed humans _had_ souls, which was an assumption I couldn't take for granted. It would be just my luck - in a nation that was still something like eighty percent Christian, which didn't even count the other Abrahamic religions - to find a human mate who was not just an atheist, but a strict materialist.

Perhaps I might ask Carlisle to talk to her about. She might not be any less incredulous, but it might save the two of us an argument - or five. Besides, Carlisle's beliefs, particularly the parts that differed from my own, led him to a dispassion that I couldn't emulate. He and Isobel would likely both enjoy their disagreement as an intellectual exercise.

I wouldn't. I _couldn't_.

There was too much at stake.

I glanced at her, and she responded by smiling at me. "I'm glad you're alive, by the way."

I was glad she was alive, too - I just wished I knew how to _keep_ her that way.

* * *

Note: Vivisection, if you've never encountered the term, refers to dissecting something while it's still alive. (The root "vivi-" referring to something being alive, also found in words like "vivid" and "vivacious.") And yeah, it's happened at times throughout history, though obviously it's considered almost unspeakably horrific now.

Now if you're excuse me, I have to go finish writing a paper on a book I had no desire to read and therefore didn't.


	50. Chapter 49

Note: We're getting nearer the end here, at least I _think_ we are - I'm not the architect type of storyteller, and sometimes I forget pieces of the story until I'm right on top of where they're supposed to go, staring through the hole in my plot.

Still, this is an important chapter because - well, you'll see.

* * *

XLIX.

"What about this one?" Edward asked, indicating a shelf I had already considered and decided against based on its price. "The amount of give in the shelves inclines me to think they're plywood rather than particle board - better quality."

"Also a hundred dollars more expensive than this one," I pointed out, gesturing toward the least expensive shelf on display.

We'd made it into Seattle just fine - and faster than I had ever gotten here before - and found the furniture store I'd decided on by looking online. Now we were browsing through what they had on offer - which _theoretically_ wasn't supposed to take long, because I had already pretty much decided on a shelf by perusing the online catalog.

Edward, however, was complicating things with his interest in details like quality and how long the shelf would actually last.

He _looked_ at me.

"Please don't ask if you can buy me a shelf," I begged. I was trying to be better about accepting gifts, but 250 dollars was a _lot_.

"Well," he smirked at me, coming closer so that he could wrap his arms around my waist, "I suppose I can do that, if you're willing to listen to my suggestion for a compromise."

He was still smirking, which didn't inspire a lot of confidence, but I nodded anyway after giving him a hard look.

"Why don't you let me pay the difference? That way you'll still pay what you planned on paying, but your shelf might actually last through the end of high school. Plus," he added, lowering his voice, "since the nicer one isn't covered in plastic wood-grain veneer, we have the option of refinishing it later if we decide we want a different furniture style when we move in together."

Now that was just _unfair_. I looked up at him, my mouth going dry.

He laughed, evidently pleased by the effect his words had had on me. "I'm going to take silence to mean assent," he teased me, but then added more seriously, "If it would help you to put it into perspective, consider that a hundred dollars means as little to me as a penny on the street might mean to you - less, probably."

" _Alright_ ," I sighed. "But not because of that perspective thing. That's just disturbing. I could pay you back…"

"I wish you wouldn't."

"I know…" I said, leaning into him so that my head rested on his shoulder.

"Maybe there's something you can give me in return," he said, making me look up. "Would you sit for Jasper and let him draw you? I...think I would like to redecorate some of my walls."

"With pictures of _me_?" I asked stupidly.

Edward laughed at me and pulled me closer, leaning down to rest his forehead against mine. "I have it on good authority," he told me in a low voice, "that teenagers routinely cover their walls with pictures of their friends and of attractive people. I'm trying to blend in...so I thought I would kill two birds with one stone."

I smacked him for quoting me, and then kissed him.

"Is that a yes?" he wondered after a moment, breaking off the kiss.

"A suitably reluctant, but also very pleased 'yes,'" I answered, giving the shelf he had chosen a covertly admiring glance. It really did look a lot better than the cheap piece of crap I had settled on.

The store had a delivery and assembly service, but not one that went all the way out to Forks, so that wasn't another charge to potentially argue over - though I would have won that argument anyway. I was capable of putting together something as simple as a shelf, especially when I had Charlie and Edward to do any heavy lifting that might be required, and Edward's speed to keep me from accidentally killing myself with the tools I was using. We bought the flat-packed box, and I watched in amusement as Edward tried to pretend it seemed as heavy to him as it ought to seem to a human. It was a bit like watching actors lift obviously-empty boxes on TV, and about as convincing.

After the furniture store, we went to the hotel so that I could shower and get dressed for dinner. Edward was taking me somewhere nice - probably entirely _too_ nice - hopefully too nice for vulgarities like _prices_ on the menu, because I wasn't sure I wanted to know. He was perfectly capable of using dinner to prove to me exactly how much a hundred dollars didn't mean to him.

God, he didn't even _eat_.

Anyway - the place was nice enough that I needed to make use of some of the new clothes that Jessica and Angela had chosen for me, and Alice had donated some jewelry and a suspiciously new pair of shoes - shoes she _claimed_ she had borrowed from Rosalie - to the cause. I made Edward promise me, as he drove us to the hotel, that he would keep one hand on me at all times. The shoes Alice had sent were wedges and not particularly high, but I had trouble balancing in _flats_.

Edward turned his face away in either amusement or embarrassment as he promised me in a low, carefully-even voice that he wouldn't let me fall over.

At the hotel, Edward used the valet service, but, once the car had been taken, stopped me from going in with a hand on my arm. Instead he pulled me off to one side of the doors and retrieved his wallet, quickly slipping a piece of plastic into my hand. I looked down and saw - an ID? A _fake_ ID, claiming I was eighteen. I looked up at Edward in surprise.

He flashed me a lopsided grin, and showed me his own ID - this one claiming he was 21. "Easier to check in this way," he said. "Someone over 21 has to be present to receive the keys, and - because you aren't family - you would need a notarized letter from one or both your parents that you're allowed to travel with us if you weren't eighteen."

"Where did you _get_ these?" I whispered, trying - and failing - to cover my shock.

Edward arched one eyebrow. "Remember our 'library'?"

Right - of course. How did I think they survived in the human world? Of course they had the ability to make things like fake IDs. I looked down at mine, impressed by how entirely real it appeared.

"Where did you get the picture?" I wondered. I looked so _happy_ \- improbably happy, in fact, given that it was supposed to be a crappy DMV photo.

"Alice took a picture of us after class," he reminded me. "You weren't quite looking at the camera, but she and Rose are good at photo manipulation."

I'd say they were - the picture even looked like me _to_ me. I hadn't noticed any manipulation. Even knowing it was there, I still couldn't tell.

Edward watched as I hid my real ID in a pocket of my purse. "Remind me to give this one back to you before we go home," I told him as I slid the fake ID into the plastic-covered slot in my wallet meant for that purpose. "Charlie would _kill_ me if he found out I had a fake ID - even one that doesn't actually let me drink."

"You can give it back to me as soon as we have the keys," he pointed out, opening the door for me and ushering me inside.

I had been too busy with novelties like valets and fake IDs to really notice the hotel before, but it was a gleamingly modern glass-and-steel affair that managed to be warm and intimate - if still a little too gleaming to be inviting - inside. Edward and I checked in and received keys without any trouble, while the obviously well-trained staff made politely friendly conversation.

Though the hotel wasn't _right_ on the bay in downtown Seattle, it still managed to have rooms with enchanting views of the water - which was the view Edward had chosen for me. In fact, he and Alice had booked two rooms right next to each other, and mine was on the corner, with floor-to-ceiling windows on two sides. One set was pointed directly at the bay, while the other showcased the Seattle skyline - and would shortly be showing off all the city's lights.

"Wow," I said.

He smiled and set my bag down on the bed.

The bathroom was equally - if not more - incredible. It had a separate shower and tub, with the tub set in a nook which was separated from the bedroom by an enormous pane of glass facing the windows overlooking the bay - meaning that one could take a bath and enjoy the view at the same time. There was a pull-down shade for privacy, but I instantly resolved to kick Edward out as soon as possible and take full advantage of the proffered luxury.

Edward left with good grace after reclaiming my fake ID, and I immediately began filling the tub - which didn't have anything so prosaic as a _faucet_ , but instead filled from the damned _ceiling_. It was almost as cool as it was absurd.

Rich people, I thought, stepping into my bath, were weird.

They really knew how to do baths, though. I lay back, enjoying the hot water, while watching the pretty but understated sunset. It wasn't until twilight began to erase the difference between land, water, and sky that I got serious about washing - and discovered that washing one's hair in a bathtub was definitely non-ideal. I wasn't big on baths, and the difficulty inherent in repeated dunkings hadn't really occurred to me before. Then I was glad for the otherwise silly fall of water from the ceiling - it made the whole thing at least slightly more practical.

Edward was waiting for me when I emerged about twenty minutes after my bath. It looked like he, too, had bathed - or maybe showered - and dressed up. Actually - he looked a lot better than I did. I mean, he _always_ looked a lot better than I did - that was what happened when one was inhumanly attractive - but his clothing actually made me wish a little bit that there had been time to let Alice find me an entire outfit. He was wearing a grey jacket - a suit jacket? or a blazer? I didn't know the difference - a blue-and-grey plaid shirt, black tie, and dark brown jeans.

Clearly he was dressed to drive me crazy, and it was working. I mean, I was wishing that I had let Alice _buy me an outfit_.

He took in the almost-knee-length, black-and-white floral skirt that Angela had forced me to buy two weeks before on our shopping trip, my plain black, scoop-necked top, and my probably-inept attempt at reproducing the hairstyle Jessica had given me for my date with Tyler - and managed not to laugh.

In fact, he was managing not to laugh really well - so well that he almost seemed…admiring.

"You look beautiful," he murmured, suddenly producing a rose from somewhere.

"Clearly you haven't looked in the mirror," I scoffed, feeling off-balance - and not just because I was wearing Rosalie's - Rosalie's _alleged_ \- shoes. Where - and _when_ \- had he managed to buy a rose?

Edward rolled his eyes. "Isobel, it's difficult to put on a tie properly and completely impossible to fix one's hair without looking in a mirror - even for me." He took my hand and closed it carefully around the stem of the rose. "You look _beautiful_."

I ducked my head to hide my blush, only just remembering that I was wearing lip gloss and shouldn't bite my lip. Suddenly Edward's face was next to mine, his mouth at my ear. "The correct response is _thank you_ \- though in your case 'I know' would be equally acceptable, because if _you_ have made use of any mirrors, you _should_ know how beautiful you are."

The sensation of his breath against my ear promptly rendered me both speechless _and_ witless, of course, which made him smile triumphantly as he took my hand - the one not holding the rose - and placed it under his arm.

Then he conducted me downstairs, looking much happier than anyone should look just because he was with me, and continued looking smug - and sneaking glances at me - all the way to the restaurant.

The restaurant was everything I had imagined - dreaded? - and more. It was on Lake Union, furnished with comfortable elegance, with a live band providing music, and it was completely full - which reminded me that it was, after all, the weekend nearest Valentine's Day. Of course it was full. And yet Edward and I were conducted to a seat - one by the windows overlooking the lake - immediately.

"You managed to get a _reservation_ here?" I demanded in a whisper. " _Yesterday_?!"

Edward shrugged, a smile pulling at one corner of his mouth. "Well, I _couldn't_ get us a private room - no matter how much I offered to pay."

I sat back, speechless.

It was immediately obvious that the restaurant's clientele were well above my social class - more than one woman, after catching sight of Edward, proceeded to examine my outfit with a sneer. None of them were as lovely or as intimidating as Rosalie, though, and Edward hardly noticed that anyone else existed, so it didn't matter to me. The staff were all very polite - the hostess almost managed to look Edward in the eye without blushing, and her careful attentiveness to _both_ of us made a nice contrast to the last time we had gone out to dinner.

Dinner was a hundred dollars for a four-course meal, though, and Edward was buying two of them - both, ultimately, for me.

The price was ridiculous, although I was lucky that the kind of place that charged a hundred dollars for a meal also offered the most upscale version of a "course," which meant each one was at best three bites. I might not eat _everything_ , but the food waste would be minimal.

I picked out eight dishes I thought I might like to try, and then Edward repeated four of them to the waiter as his own.

It was a good thing, I thought as I looked around, including out over the beautiful view of the lights on the lake, that I had let Edward pay for almost half of my bookshelf. Otherwise letting him buy me dinner here might have given me a stroke. When he had told me that a hundred dollars to him was little more - or less - than a penny was to me, I really hadn't understood. I hadn't _wanted_ to understand.

I was starting to understand, though. It meant living life in stunningly lovely places like this - and like the hotel. It also meant Edward watching me eagerly, hoping only that I was enjoying myself, completely uninterested in what it had cost him to bring me here.

"The view is beautiful," I told him. "And we should find out who this band is, because they're good."

He smiled.

Did I even need to mention that the food was delicious?

I expected Esme and Alice to be at the hotel when we returned, but they weren't, and I was just as glad. It was possible they were staying away on purpose, in which case I probably owed Alice. Edward walked me to my door like the gentleman he was, and then tried to leave me after a single kiss.

"Edward," I sighed, "don't you want to come in for…" The cliche, I knew, was "a cup of coffee," but he didn't drink coffee. In fact, I couldn't come up with _any_ useful deflections or euphemisms. "Well...to make out?" I finished bluntly.

He made a little sound that might have been frustration, and then took a step backward - which was exactly what I _didn't_ want him to do.

"I don't want to spend the night alone," I told him somewhat truthfully, "but I don't want to inconvenience Alice or Esme. You, I know, won't mind staying with me while I'm sleeping. They might get bored, even if they would be willing to do it anyway."

Edward didn't say anything or come closer, his face closed and unreadable, but when I slowly pushed the door open and stepped into the room, he followed.

I managed to wait until the door was closed to grab him.

If there was any hesitation on his part, I couldn't detect it. His hands were instantly on my face, his thumbs leaving cool trails on my cheeks while my hands tangled themselves in his jacket. I wasn't certain whether it was he who first nudged me in the direction of the bed, or whether I realized that, between my weak knees and the wedges I was wearing, it would be a good idea to sit down, and drew him after me. Either way, it _was_ a good idea to sit down, and he came with me very willingly, falling to his knees in front of me as I sat on the edge of the mattress. That changed things - now, instead of craning my neck backwards, I was able to bend over _him_ just a little, and I liked the change in perspective. My hair fell forward, curtaining us and making the space we inhabited feel even more private.

In a sense, our kisses were very chaste - closed-mouthed, of course, and Edward was, as always, circumspect in where he placed his hands. One of them busily caressed my hair, while the other remained safely against my ribs - neither dangerously high nor dangerously low. The only things that made it anything less than perfectly sweet and pure were his positioning between my knees, which was perhaps a bit suggestive, and the little growling sounds he made as our lips met again and again. Tonight I felt a kind of frustration, though - with myself, with our situation, with _everything_. I wanted - I wasn't really sure what I wanted, but I wanted something _else_ , something _more_. I wanted him to touch me, and I wanted to touch him back, and I wanted -

Okay, so maybe what I wanted was to have sex - but, in my defense, it didn't feel the way I thought that was supposed to feel. I knew how it felt to be turned on, but this was something beyond that. It was almost like a desire to possess another person, except that it was less that, and more like a frustration over not knowing how to acknowledge something that was already true. Our chaste kisses and caresses weren't even _close_ to enough, and the more we kissed and touched, the more I wanted.

Until it occurred to me, all at once, that what really mattered was that Edward kept _his_ mouth closed. What I did with _my_ mouth didn't matter.

And so I licked him.

For the space of two heartbeats he froze, and I had just enough time to wonder if I had done something wrong - and then I was suddenly on my back on the bed, with Edward's cool weight on top of me. And - he wasn't just kind of between my legs anymore, he was, like, _between my legs_. As if to underscore just how _between my legs_ he was, there was a distinctive and, uh, _growing_ ridge pressing against me.

On the one hand - I was pretty okay with this whole change. On the other - I was kind of freaking out, because this was definitely about to lead very irrevocably to sex, and I still didn't know why I hadn't felt ready, or if I _still_ didn't feel ready, because it was pretty hard to know how ready I felt emotionally when I felt _so_ ready in...other...ways.

Maybe, I told myself, no one _ever_ felt emotionally ready the first time, because how were you supposed to be ready for something you had never experienced before? Maybe it was just one of those things where you didn't know for certain whether it was right or wrong until afterward.

And it was _Edward_ I was talking to myself about here. How wrong could it really be?

And even though some still-rational part of my brain was ninety percent certain that this was all very spurious reasoning cooked up in the heat of the moment, that still-rational part wasn't even close to large enough to begin sorting through any of it. And even if it had, it wasn't very likely that I would have listened, because little considerations like "reason" and "sense" didn't look very appealing sitting beside feelings like "passion" and "desire" and a general sense of "oh God fuck _yes_."

So I tugged meaningfully at Edward's jacket, which he promptly and swiftly rid himself of, and then pulled his shirt tails out, my hand finding his bare back -

And suddenly his weight just - wasn't _there_ anymore.

I scrambled upright to find him on the other side of the room, practically flattened against the wall.

"I need to - go," he choked. "Alice. You'll - I'll send - "

"Wait!" I interrupted - but he was gone.

I jumped as the door slammed shut behind him, my heart still pounding with lust and adrenaline and - whatever - and tried to make sense of what had just happened.

But instead of doing that, I found myself bursting into tears.

The storm of weeping was mercifully brief, but it left a cold emptiness in its wake as I wiped my eyes, remembering the fear and despair in his before he had run out the door, vampire style, unable to _wait_ to get away from me -

And then I belatedly remembered what he had _said_. He was going to send Alice.

I didn't want to see Alice. I didn't want to see _anyone_.

I jumped off the bed, grabbing my bag as I went and taking it into the bathroom. If I happened to be in the shower when Alice came, I would have a good reason not to answer the door, right?

I didn't quite make it into the shower before Alice tapped on the door, but I called out that I was just _about_ to shower, and that I intended to go to bed afterward - which sounded like as good a plan as any at the moment, even though I was way too jumpy and upset to ever, _ever_ sleep.

She was quiet for a moment as she considered my response. "Are you okay?" she asked in return. "Edward didn't say exactly - but he seemed to think - "

"I'm fine," I cut her off. "I'm just going to shower and go to bed."

"Okay," she sighed through the door. "Well...I'll be next door if you change your mind. Okay?"

"Yeah, fine," I grumbled in response, realizing after the fact that I probably didn't need to raise my voice to be heard by Alice at all - and that I should definitely take a shower, because she would probably know if I didn't. It was probably a good thing anyway - my hair was weird and annoying parted the way it was.

Once I was standing beneath the hot water, any drive to do anything else fled. I wrapped my arms around myself, shivering in spite of the heat, and tried to make sense of the last fifteen minutes. My feelings were still there, though, gumming up all my thought processes. Why, I demanded of myself, did I even feel so bad? I _knew_ Edward wasn't gone for good, so who even cared how bad it felt that he had left just as things were getting - as I was trying to - when I maybe sort of wanted -

Okay...that was a stupid question. _I_ cared. I cared _a lot_ , and here I was trying to fall back into my old habits, ignoring everything Angela had told me.

I shivered again and turned the heat on the water up a little, even though I wasn't _physically_ cold.

Why did I feel this way?

No, I decided after a moment of thought, that was too high-level of a question. What did I _know_?

I knew a lot of things, but I couldn't see any of them. My feelings were still _there_ , hanging in gross, cobwebby strands - only sticky and thick, like chewed gum. I couldn't see through them, and it seemed like any attempt to press through would just leave me hopelessly tangled. I might be able to _cut_ through, but that was the equivalent of what I always did, and it wasn't right.

Well - maybe it didn't matter if I got tangled? I mean, as long as I wasn't thrashing around trying to get _un_ tangled, getting tangled wasn't dire - just an annoying inconvenience. I imagined myself sweeping aside my gummy, cobwebby feelings with one hand as I tried to get a better view of what I _knew_ to be the truth. It didn't matter, for the moment, if they clung desperately to my hand - they weren't going anywhere and weren't obstructing my view, so I could deal with them at my leisure.

In the meantime, leaving aside my desperate, irrational fear, what did I know to be true?

First: Edward was coming back. Maybe not tonight, maybe not even tomorrow - and my stomach turned over in abject terror at that - but, I reassured myself, he _was_ coming back.

Second: Edward hadn't meant to hurt me. It was obvious _now_ that I had had his thinking about sex all backward. Of course, I should have considered that possibility, but I had been operating under the (incorrect) assumption that if I had it wrong, he would correct me. I probably should have known better - Edward was very bad at communicating, and especially at communicating his feelings. In his own twisted way, he probably thought he was trying to protect me - he _was_ trying to protect me, physically - he just never seemed to understand what kind of damage his lack of communication would do to my feelings.

Third: Edward cared. He wouldn't have been trying, in his own blindly dense way, to protect me, and he wouldn't have sent Alice to me, if he didn't care. Hell, he wouldn't have run _away_ if he didn't care.

I knew those three things, but somewhere along the line I didn't _feel_ one or more of them. My feelings were beginning with a set of assumptions not based in reality, and I thought, considering my own reactions, that the major assumption was that Edward wasn't going to stick around. That made sense - one of my most consistently recurring fears revolved around his level of commitment to us - to there _being_ an "us."

I considered the mass of sticky, stretchy, cobwebby feelings that were still trying to creep up and smother me. If, I thought at myself, the assumption that Edward is not committed to me were correct, these feelings would make sense. But it is _not_ correct. He is frightened, too - he is _terrified_ of hurting me. He also knows very well how much it would hurt me if he abandoned me, and so he will not. He will be back.

There was something in that litany that soothed me - that made my feelings more manageable, less sticky, and less smothering, and so I repeated it as I mechanically reached for the bottle of shampoo attached to the wall of the shower.

After the second time through, I added in a reminder that Edward wasn't trying to hurt me, and that he wouldn't have sent Alice to try to comfort me if he didn't want me to be comforted. After all, I remembered suddenly, I _had_ told him that I didn't want to stay the night alone. If he had remembered that I had said so - even in the midst of everything else that was happening -

Of course he had - and he hadn't wanted to leave me alone.

Somehow _that_ was the piece of evidence I needed - just a bit of evidence that I could offer myself regarding Edward's care for me. The gifts couldn't do it - I was still too suspicious of gifts. It was that pause - that pause when he must have been completely wild with agony over what had almost happened, and what might still happen if he let himself go - to try and offer me even just the tiniest reassurance - that pause meant everything. It _could not_ have happened had my bleakest assumptions been a reflection of reality.

I didn't just know it, either. I _felt_ it.

There was no need to sort through and untangle my feelings. They released me with a sigh of relief - or maybe _I_ sighed in relief. I didn't have to force them down. I didn't have to ignore them. They were just...gone. Resolved. _Dealt with_.

I was okay.

Edward was coming back, and I was okay.

I missed Edward, I was sorry that I hadn't understood his problems with sex, and I was annoyed that he hadn't explained...but I was okay.

I was _okay_ \- and I was more than okay, because I _had figured out how to be okay_.

It was such a novel experience that I had to pause to wonder if I had ever _been_ okay before.

It wasn't, I understood now with blinding clarity, that feelings were unreasonable, as I had always assumed - it was just that they had an inertia which pure reason did not. I had never respected that inertia and so had ruthlessly pushed aside any feelings that weren't instantly moving in the direction I wanted to move whenever I decided to change direction. Because of my impatience, I had never taken the time to see and address the reasons _why_ my feelings might be moving the way they were.

Now that I understood the inertia - now that I had _felt_ it - none of my problems seemed insurmountable anymore. Angela had given me the key to _myself_ , and I thought I probably owed her much more than she would ever accept from me.

Everything would be fine, I thought as I squirted some body wash onto the little shower puff I traveled with, and for the first time ever I wasn't saying it to myself as a platitude to cover nervous dread. Everything _would_ be fine because I would _make_ it fine.

Edward would be back - and when he came back, we had a lot to discuss.

* * *

Note: I've mentioned it before to some people, but Isobel is heavily based on my best friend. Her revelation here is my experience, though - I don't really know how my friend experienced learning how to deal with her feelings. This is how it was for me. Once I had done it the first time, it made sense in a way that completely altered my perception of myself and the world, which made changing many of my habits a remarkably easy thing to do. I don't know if it's the same for everyone, but this is why I like philosophy - I've always found that changing something fundamental changes everything built on top of it. It seems to me a more efficient way to solve personal problems than trying to tinker around the edges by fixing individual thoughts or actions.


	51. Chapter 50

L.

I had never wanted to make Isobel a vampire as much as I did as I fled from the hotel.

Lust. It was lust that made me want to turn her so badly. The irony was that I had never taken lust - sexual lust - very seriously. In fact, I had always somewhat scorned the characterization of our thirst as "blood lust," because that, to me, implied the kind of weak inclination that only fools and libertines failed to adequately control. And here it turned out _I_ had been the fool for failing to understand just how apt the juxtaposition between sexual desire and the thirst really was.

I _wanted_ Isobel. Of course I wanted far more than just her body, but I couldn't touch her laughter or kiss her oddly-shaped logic. No matter how much I might want it to be enough, exchanging clever words with her was _not_ enough. Exchanging affectionate gestures was not enough. Exchanging careful kisses and touches was _not enough_. I wasn't certain that sinking into her and hearing her cry out my name would be enough, either - but perhaps, done often enough -

Oh God, I couldn't let myself think this way.

Why had I followed her into her room?

Weak. I was weak - and, worse, I was fool enough to believe myself strong.

Though not tonight. No. I had known what would happen, and I had gone anyway. Because Isobel had asked.

She would never have asked if I had told her the truth.

Lust burned through me, and there was only one thing likely to be capable of cooling its heat: self-loathing. For better or worse, I possessed _that_ in abundance, especially knowing how avoidable the conclusion of this evening had been. Isobel had undoubtedly been doing what she wanted to do, but she had equally - or more than equally - thought she was doing what was best for me.

I had let her think it. I hadn't believed she would act on my nearly-intentional misinformation so soon.

I had once again underestimated the degree to which the bond between us would drive her the same way it drove me.

I was selfish, arrogant, and a completely hopeless fool - and so I ran away.

I didn't run far - only a few miles. Far enough to get away from Alice's voice in my mind, but no further. I orbited the hotel like a planet around its star, unable either to escape its emotional gravity or, at first, to slow the momentum of my self-hatred enough to return. As it turned out, however, I wasn't moving through a vacuum, and the friction of my obligations - especially my obligations to Isobel - did eventually cause my orbit to decay.

When I came within range of Alice's thoughts several hours after running away, the metaphor broke entirely.

 _EDWARD!_ she was shouting silently. _EDWARD, YOU BASTARD, I DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU DID BUT SHE WON'T EVEN TALK TO ME AND I CAN'T SEE WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN BECAUSE YOU'RE BEING AN_ _ **IDIOT**_ _RIGHT NOW!_

I winced as Alice began repeating her exasperated tirade, and wondered how long she had been silently yelling at me - maybe, _hopefully_ , not long. Even if the future was unclear, she might have been able to get an idea regarding when my return was likely to occur. I sincerely hoped that was the case - otherwise, if she had been keeping this up for hours (complete, no doubt, with the headache that often accompanied her attempts to focus on as-of-yet undetermined futures), my all-too-clever sister would find a way to exact her revenge.

I turned and headed straight for the hotel.

My clothing was damp when I arrived - my orbit had taken me unavoidably through the sound - but my speed had at least dried me enough that I wasn't dripping. It was, additionally, late enough that the man behind the desk was uninterested in my rumpled appearance - he was much more concerned over whether I could smell the alcohol on him, and was pleased when I passed him by with only a nod.

Alice met me at the door of the room next to Isobel's before I even had a chance to knock, and immediately thrust a change of clothes at me. _She told me that she was going to shower and go to bed, but her breathing is right next to the door, not in bed,_ my sister thought at me as I entered the room and just as swiftly replaced my damp, salt-stiffened clothing. _I think things will be okay between the two of you_...she continued cautiously - my return had necessarily made the future a little bit firmer.

"I'm going to go talk to her," I sighed, knowing that Alice would hound me about it ceaselessly if I didn't tell her my intentions immediately. The conversation would necessarily be brief, but - if Alice wasn't observing that, there was no reason for me to bring it up.

"I know," she sniffed, apparently having already caught that much. "I still think you're horrible, whatever it is you did. Poor Isobel probably fell asleep by the door waiting for you."

I tried not to wince visibly, knowing that Alice was probably right and tormented by the thought of my Isobel alone and miserable, curled up on the cold floor simply on the chance that I might return. How many times had I made her cry now? Tonight was another black mark against me.

Selfish, arrogant _fool_.

I sent Alice away, though not before she had put in a few more choice remarks about my treatment of my mate. She went unwillingly, grumbling that it was too late to call Jasper to spend the rest of the night with her - as Esme had apparently done with Carlisle - but I wanted privacy far more than I wanted to please my sister.

When I was certain she was gone, I left the second room and approached Isobel's door. I hadn't been able to pick out her breathing from that of the other people people in other rooms before coming out into the hall, but now I could - easily - underscoring the fact that she really was asleep by the door. Alice must have come out into the hall at least once to check on her. I could tell she was asleep with equal certainty - I knew the rhythm of her unconscious respiration as well as my lungs had once known my own, back when I had been capable of unconsciousness.

I flattened my hand against the door between us, imagining that it could conduct some of her thoughts and feelings to me, so that I would know better what to do and what to say. But it couldn't and I was wasting time.

I tapped lightly on the door, hoping to avoid startling her.

Her breathing instantly hitched, going from its sleeping rhythm to a waking rhythm, and I heard cloth shift against cloth and against the door as she stirred - perhaps sat upright. _Probably_ sat upright, because it was hardly a second before she was scrambling to her feet and yanking the door open.

Her hair and pajamas were messy, her eyes bleary with sleep and the sudden exposure to the light of the hall, and a wrinkled blanket or pillowcase had imprinted itself on her cheek, but she somehow managed not to look like the vulnerable, unhappy girl I had expected. She looked...stern. Proud, even. Beautiful.

"Edward," she rasped, her voice, too, displaying how recently she had been asleep. "You're back. Good." She opened the door a little wider, giving me a glimpse of the duvet she had apparently been wrapped in while sleeping. "Come in," she said. "We have a lot to discuss."

"I can't do that," I told her in a low, even voice, trying not to let myself be pushed off balance by the disruption of my expectations. Perhaps I was trying, even more, not to be pushed off balance by her unstudied beauty and the wonderful, damnable scent that wafted both from her and from the blankets she had recently been wrapped in. "I just came to apologize."

She made an impatient gesture, frowning in my general direction, but apparently still too blinded by the lit hallway to glare at me. "Being tortured doesn't solve anything, Edward. You managed to pull yourself away from me when we were about fifteen seconds from total nudity. I think you can handle a five minute discussion of sex while I'm pissed off at you and we're fully clothed. If necessary, we can also stay on opposite ends of the room from each other."

"Are you angry at me?" I asked softly, even though I knew she had every right to be angry.

Selfish.

"Of course I am," she answered. "Though," she added thoughtfully, "maybe not as angry as you'd think. Still," she went on, "you definitely owe me this conversation."

She had a point - more than one, actually. Though it had been a _miracle_ that I had managed to stop myself - both of us - earlier in the evening, it underscored the degree to which Isobel's desires influenced mine. If she did not want to pick up where I had ended things earlier, the thought of forcing it on her was utterly repugnant to me.

Standing here like this felt so familiar, a parody of what had happened a few hours before. It wasn't going to end the same way, though, I told myself.

I wasn't certain if I believed me. Nevertheless, I let her usher me into the room.

She flopped into a chair by the window with a sigh, and then curled up, drawing her legs in. She already seemed reasonably awake, and more than reasonably self-assured - certainly much more self-assured than I had expected her to be. I remained standing on the other side of the bed.

We stared at each other for a long moment as I tried to decipher her expression and she...I had no idea what she was thinking.

"You came to apologize," she reminded me at last.

"I let you believe something that wasn't true," I told her promptly. "You assumed that I was trying not to push you into - into a level of intimacy you weren't yet ready for, when in reality - "

"Skip the explanation," she ordered. "I know this."

"Ah," I said articulately. I supposed...that my reaction had, perhaps, made my deceptions sufficiently clear.

"You really _are_ arrogant," she sighed. "Just because you can read other minds doesn't make your own some kind of impenetrable fortress. Somewhere in there, you're still using something that almost resembles logic."

"I'm sorry," I murmured almost reflexively. I wasn't quite certain which part of the mess I was apologizing for now, but she could take her pick. I was sorry enough for all of it.

"There's one thing that I _don't_ understand, though. Why didn't you just take a single moment to explain? It would have taken less than thirty seconds, and then tonight never would have happened this way."

That was certainly one of the things I blamed myself very thoroughly for. "I didn't know how to approach the topic...safely," I explained.

Isobel's eyebrows went up. "Safely," she repeated. " _Safely_."

I couldn't find a way to apologize for what I was - there weren't enough words in the entire world - so I looked away.

Her voice, when she spoke, was full of icy fury. "You were afraid you were going to _rape_ me?"

The word "rape" hit me like a completely unexpected punch to the gut, and my head jerked up as I stared at her in dismay. "No!" I gasped. "Of course not!"

"Edward," she snapped, wrapping her arms around herself, "I may not have a perfect memory, but I seem to remember telling you I wasn't ready to have sex yet. So if what you were afraid of was sex-related, it would have been rape."

"I wouldn't have!" I snapped right back at her. Of course I wouldn't have!

She was silent for a moment, staring at me, her expression once again unreadable, and I wondered how I was supposed to make this right. How could she even believe it of me?

"Well, at least we agree on that much," she sighed, getting up off the chair.

It was my turn to stare at her.

"Look, I can't decipher all the reasons you think the way you do, but can we drop the pretense that not talking about sex is somehow meant to protect me from your sexual advances? You should know me well enough by now to know that misinformation will _never_ be an effective means of protecting me. I'm too…" She paused and made a face. "I'm too inquisitive, too impatient with my own hang-ups, and way too interested in tugging at any loose threads I might find."

I did know that - and yet -

"I _was_ trying to protect you," I insisted. My voice sounded like it belonged to someone else.

"Yeah, I know," she replied. "You were trying to protect me from you. Not because of what you might do to me if one of us happened to say the word 'sex,' but because you're still under the - stupid - impression that you're somehow inherently dangerous to me."

I felt my eyes go wide, and my breathing stilled.

Was I - ?

Underneath everything, was that - ?

"That probably seems like I'm assuming a lot," Isobel went on, apparently not noticing the effect her words had had one me, "but it's really the only thing that fits the available data. Your first reaction is _always_ that if I know more about you, somehow it will be dangerous to me. Obviously you believe that _you_ , in your entirety, are the danger."

God. She was right. She was right and it was because -

I shied away from finishing my thought, but my mind continued on regardless of my wishes. I was arrogant, selfish, foolish - a killer, a monster, a _thing_.

I closed my eyes against the pain of reality, but they snapped open again just as quickly when I heard Isobel take a step toward me.

"I know I just called you arrogant a little bit ago, but it's not true - I know that," she said, approaching slowly. "I was just angry. The truth is - I know that the truth is you still think you're irredeemable. That you're a monster."

I felt frozen in place, suddenly suspecting that _she_ could read minds. Of course I had told her - weeks ago, now - that I wasn't as good as she thought I was, but...she had extrapolated more about my attitude towards myself from that disclosure than I had expected. Although...of course there had been other, similar statements, if not quite so direct, and actions which further implied my belief in my own wretchedness. So - perhaps my surprise at the depth of her understanding said more about my expectations of being understood than it did about my belief in Isobel's capacity for insight.

She reached up and rested her fingers against my cheek. "Edward, do you really think I'm the kind of person who would fall in love with a monster?"

"You didn't have a choice," I reminded her, my voice crowded with unnameable emotions.

"That doesn't matter. If I had been given a choice, I would have chosen you - I would _always_ have chosen you." She flattened her palm against my face, and I felt myself lean into the caress.

Rosalie, I remembered, had said the same about Emmett.

"I wouldn't be here if you were a monster," she told me. "Love or not - my will is far more developed than my capacity to feel what I'm feeling. If I _thought_ you were bad, I would already be gone."

Alice had told me something similar on that day I had come home certain that Isobel wanted nothing more to do with me.

"I have never felt I deserved you," I admitted. "I have always wished, for your sake, that I could release you."

"Well, you can stop feeling that way," she replied, "because even if you _could_ take away my feelings for you, I would refuse to hand them over. They're mine and I'm keeping them."

I smiled a little at the fierceness in her voice - and then pulled her into my arms, burying my face in her hair. "I'm so sorry I didn't tell you the truth."

"I know," she replied. "It's not hard to forgive you, because we're both working on things. You need to start communicating, and to do that you need to understand that not everything that goes wrong is an indictment of your character. I - " She paused and took a deep breath. "I - have my own things, which have become…" she hesitated. "Well, we can go over that later."

I pulled away slightly to look at her, and didn't like what I saw. Her face was drawn and unhappy, but resolute at the same time. "What's wrong?" I asked.

"Lots of things," she huffed. "Are you sure you want to get into it now? I had a lot of time to think things over while you were gone and before I accidentally fell asleep, and - most of my thoughts sucked."

"'Sucked' _how_?" I demanded.

I knew as soon as the words were out of my mouth that Isobel was unlikely to react well to them-she typically didn't like demands, especially when those demands revealed that I was assuming the worst about something. For once, however, she didn't seem to notice. I wasn't certain whether or not to find it reassuring.

She bit her lip and her brow furrowed as she fixed her eyes somewhere around the level of my right shoulder. "I suppose the main thing is that...I don't think I believe in commitment."

I felt my eyes widen as she - thankfully - shook her head in apparent frustration. "No, sorry," she amended, "that came out wrong. I mean that I _know_ commitments exist and that sometimes people even keep them, but I don't actually _believe_ they exist. My _impression_ is that making a commitment is a recipe for near-immediate disaster - like, I don't know, you're just daring Fate to come...screw everything up."

"I see," I said carefully, trying to decide how that was different from what she had already admitted to me - her fear that one of us would abandon the other.

She stepped away from me, wrapping her arms around herself. "I know that I already knew I didn't quite trust this to last," she sighed, echoing my thoughts, "but...this is much bigger than I ever thought. I mean - " she paused briefly, her eyes flashing to my face, "God, this hurts to admit," she said before immediately charging on. "You know my stepfather, Phil?"

I nodded. Of course I knew of Phil.

"I don't love Phil," she went on. "I _like_ Phil. I like Phil _a lot_. But - I don't believe that he's a permanent fixture in my life, and if I let myself love him, and then my mom - or if he - but, no, it's much more likely to be my mom - if she decided she didn't want him anymore - "

Isobel drew in a ragged breath, but shook off the hand I placed on her shoulder.

"I don't dare love him," she went on, her voice bleak, "because he might decide, if things fell apart, that I belong to my mom - which I _do_ \- and I might lose him. And even if he didn't, and I didn't - how could I divide my time, my attention, _myself_ , with yet _another_ parent, living in _another_ place? I can barely - I can barely hold on to Charlie and Renee at the same time."

She raised her eyes to my face, clearly revealing the tears standing in them, and I ached for her. "How could I ever forgive my mom if she moved on?" Isobel whispered. "If she moved on _again_? And," she continued before I could find anything to say, "how do I know I'm not like her? How do I know _either_ of us isn't like her? How do I know _anyone_ \- anyone other than Charlie, maybe - isn't like her?"

I corrected Isobel gently: "What you're afraid you are, and afraid everyone else might be as well, is what you're also afraid Renee is - _not_ what you know she is." As little respect as Isobel's descriptions of Renee inspired in me, Isobel was extrapolating a future that had not, and might never, come to pass.

The tears in Isobel's eyes spilled over, and she nodded. "I hate doubting her," she told me. "And I know we aren't like her - either of us. But I _am_ afraid."

She paused, took a deep breath, sniffed, and wiped her face. "That's - the difficult stuff that came out of tonight. The good thing, though, is that I might know how to start convincing myself that my fear isn't necessarily based in reality - definitely my fear about us." She bit her lip. "The stuff about Renee and Phil - I don't know, because I'm _not_ certain Renee can maintain a decades-long relationship. I want her to be able to, but I don't _know_."

I took her hand, and she squeezed mine in return. "I was pretty hurt when you left," she admitted to me, and then told me about her fears and how she had gone about calming them. It struck me, as Isobel described how she usually handled hurt and fear in order to better contrast how she had handled them this time, that I hated to think of her habit of impatient intolerance towards herself. I wanted better for her. If she knew - or could guess - even half the things I thought of myself, would she feel similarly?

We were sitting on the edge of the bed by then, and I found myself staring at my cold, unnatural hands wrapped around Isobel's soft, human ones. I didn't know how to feel anything _other_ than loathing for myself. The unnatural strength of my hands wasn't meant to provide for anyone else. It was meant to _kill_. And I had killed.

I still killed. Not people - but my entire existence still necessarily relied on the death of other creatures.

Maybe Isobel _would_ love a monster. Maybe her kindness -

No, I thought, studying her. She was kind, yes, but what I was imagining was a doormat. She wasn't that.

I felt a smile tugging at my mouth. _No one_ would mistake Isobel for a doormat.

She had finished telling me about how the evening had affected her, and she, too, was staring at our hands, lost in her own thoughts. I wanted to share them, but first -

I gathered her close, marvelling anew at the fact that she came so willingly. "Isobel, how do you know I'm not bad?"

She laughed softly and kissed my jaw before yawning. "Only you, Edward, would seriously need to ask that. I'm willing to tell you, but I'm getting tired so if you want to know tonight, you're going to have to promise to stay the rest of the night with me. Which," she continued before I could protest, "isn't a proposition."

It sounded very like a proposition to me, and I found myself eyeing her suspiciously.

"It isn't a proposition because I'm still not ready to have sex, and now I know why," she explained around her obviously-suppressed amusement at my reaction. She sobered, though, as she went on: "I'm not sure how I feel about casual sex, but when there are feelings involved, it's definitely a commitment to me. Even though I'm aware it's silly to feel that everything will go absolutely wrong if we have sex, I know now that I _will_ feel that way if I don't deal with my fear of commitment first. I don't know how long that will take - probably a lot more than a single evening - but I think I'll make steady progress now that I both know what's wrong and have a general outline for what to do about it."

I grunted.

"Yes, that _does_ mean you need to get to work on your end," she teased - half-teased - me. Emmett was right: she wasn't going to be satisfied with celibacy, which I should have expected from the first.

That was still a problem for the future, though. Right now - right now she had offered to let me spend the night near her, the very thing I had wanted almost since we first met. "I could pull the chair up," I offered.

"Or you could just come to bed with me," she countered. "You're not in any real danger if I'm not ready to participate - or, hell, Edward, you realize that every time you've almost lost it, it's been because _I_ initiated something, either purposely or accidentally?"

I wanted to ask her: And what if you accidentally initiate something in your sleep? I knew that wasn't a real objection, though - I might be uncomfortable, but an unconscious person couldn't be ready to participate in anything. I was slowly beginning to understand that I was at least not such a terrible monster that I would ever put my own lust ahead of Isobel's desires, even if I found it reprehensible that, in such a situation, I felt lust at all.

Was the discomfort of potential - even likely - arousal reason enough to miss out on the satisfaction of holding Isobel in my arms for the rest of the night?

Of course it wasn't.

I rose swiftly, cradling Isobel in my arms, and dropped her on pillows at the head of the bed, and then left her briefly to retrieve the duvet she had left by the door. In the blink of an eye, I had spread it across the bed again. Isobel watched me as I came around the side of the bed at a more human speed to lift one corner, inviting her to crawl under the blankets.

"Explain to me how you can believe I'm not a villain," I said, sliding into bed beside her.


	52. Chapter 51

Note: I'm _free._

I mean, provided I passed all my finals.

You know what's crazy? This has been the worst semester _ever_. I'd better pass everything, because I don't have another of these in me.

...and I already miss it. Where am I going to hear about new books? Who am I going to talk them over with? How am I going to be forced into coming up with some totally amazing perspective that I only thought of because I was desperate for a paper topic?

Maybe most importantly: how am I going to live without 24/7 access to JSTOR?!

 _Sigh._ I think I'm going to go download peer-reviewed research while I still can.

* * *

LI.

Waking up in Edward's arms was, I decided, the _only_ worthwhile way to wake up.

Even once I was awake, I was perfectly content simply to lie in bed, totally relaxed, while he slowly stroked my hair. I might have stayed there all day - and not _just_ to avoid shopping with Alice - had he not finally called me out on _being_ awake.

"No I'm not. Not really," I groaned, cuddling closer to him. He was still fully clothed - I mean, who knew if he even _owned_ pajamas? - so it wasn't as comfortable as it might have been. It was more comfortable than _not_ cuddling with him, though.

"You've been awake for half an hour," he told me, sounding amused.

"You can't prove it," I grumbled.

"I _can_ prove it, because I knew you were awake as soon as your breathing changed," he countered, convincing me only that it was far too early in the day to argue about anything. "Did you sleep well?" he continued.

"You shouldn't ask me about that," I told him, managing to locate at least a piece of my sense of humor.

"Why not?" he wondered, his hand stilling on my head.

I head-butted his hand to get it moving again. "Because the answer might be that I refuse to ever sleep without you again."

I could hear Edward's growl rumbling in his chest, and his hand left my hair entirely in order to tip my chin up - presumably so that I would look at him. I managed to pry at least one eye open, in spite of the brightness of the morning. " _You_ shouldn't _tease_ me about that," he told me.

"Who's teasing?" I asked, knowing that the answer, on the one hand, was me - but also that I was completely serious.

He sat up abruptly. "Isobel - "

"No," I groaned, raising myself on one arm and managing to find a pillow somewhere behind me so that I could hit him with it. "That's _not_ what you're supposed to do."

" _Isobel_ ," Edward repeated, taking the pillow from me with frankly irritating ease and dropping it on the floor. "Are you - are you giving me permission to - to stay near you at night?"

"Permission?" I sniffed. "That sounded like a demand to me, and I expect you to treat it as one. Now would you _please_ lie down?"

He didn't though. Instead he bent over me and kissed me.

That was very nice for about five seconds, until I realized that I probably had terrible morning breath. I pushed him away, ignoring his sounds of protest. "I haven't brushed my teeth," I told him.

"I don't _care_ ," he retorted, but turned his attention to my neck, where his cold lips made me shiver for reasons that had very little to do with temperature.

I had just decided that I should probably stop him before I started trying to get him naked again, when he paused of his own accord and raised his head to look at me. "Are you certain you - you don't mind if I listen to you sleeping? Even though, before, you - "

"Wait," I protested. "If you're about to compare this to when you were following me around when we first met - and seriously can't tell the difference between that and this - I'm going to bite you. And what's this crap about _listening_ to me sleep? You had better be talking about not being able to see me in the dark and _not_ assuming that I'm demanding your presence on my roof, or else...I'm going to bite you _again_."

My admittedly stupid threats made Edward laugh, but he also lay down beside me again, which I counted as a win - especially when his hand went to back to my hair as I scooted closer to rest my head on his chest.

"I will _also_ be listening to you sleep, no matter whether I'm outside or in your room," Edward informed me several moments later, rousing me from the half-sleep I had fallen into.

"Oh?" I asked. "Is my breathing that interesting?"

I could hear the smile in his voice when he spoke: "Yes, but that's not what I mean. Did you know that you talk in your sleep?"

"No. How would I know that?" I retorted, and then added, interested in spite of myself, "What do I talk about?"

"Some of it is nonsense," he replied, "but a surprising amount has some internal coherency. Last night you were apparently outraged by the idea of science classes where the grades are entirely based on essays instead of tests."

"Ugh. That _does_ sound awful, so score one for my subconscious," I said. "But I don't remember dreaming about it at all. I almost never remember having any dreams, and the ones I do have rarely have plots - or even, like, _people_."

"Humans, I believe, only remember their dreams right before they wake up, not those they have while deeply asleep," he told me. "So that probably isn't surprising or unusual."

"I didn't know that," I said.

We lapsed into comfortable silence again, but now I was truly awake and I found myself reflecting on the things we had talked about the night before. Some of it, in the light of morning, seemed a little unreal - like, was I really _that_ afraid of making a commitment? I didn't feel it at the moment. I would have to keep an eye on myself and my feelings to see if it was really that big of a problem. Or if I had somehow already conquered it? That seemed unlikely, but…

Well, whatever.

The part that _didn't_ seem unreal was everything I had said about Edward - maybe because I had literally fallen asleep trying to offer up reasons why I thought he was wonderful.

A thought struck me all at once, and I propped myself up on one elbow to look at the subject of my musings.

"Is something wrong?" Edward asked, his hand slipping from my hair and settling instead on my waist. I liked the way he ran his fingers down my back and around my ribs, making even that simple movement into a caress.

"Is there anything else you're not telling me for my own good?" I asked point-blank.

He went very still for a moment.

"What is it?" I sighed.

"That's not it," he protested - a little weakly, I thought, which made me think that was probably _exactly_ it.

I just stared at him.

"Really, Isobel," he insisted. "I didn't - I _don't_ \- want to spend the weekend arguing about it. In fact...I thought I might ask Carlisle to talk to you, because I think he can present my position more...dispassionately...than I can."

I spent a moment reflecting on that. "You should tell me," I concluded, meeting his eyes solemnly. "You've kept too many things from me, and so you should tell me this one. In return, I promise I won't bring it up until tomorrow, no matter what it is."

He grimaced and looked away, but didn't argue. "We have to decide whether or not you're going to become a vampire," he said.

I felt my lungs constrict painfully. I had never asked - I had hardly dared wonder about it to _myself_.

"We aren't going to agree," he added quietly.

Oh. Which meant - it could _only_ mean that he didn't want me to become a vampire.

But - why?

Because - he didn't want to be with me forever?

God - had I really doubted the strength of my irrational fears? I couldn't now - I was instantly drowning in them.

I took a deep breath and told myself firmly that this sudden uncertainty was _not_ a punishment from fate for the closeness Edward and I had been sharing last night and this morning.

"Do you - " I began, and then, remembering my promise, bit off the rest of what I wanted to ask. Instead I swallowed and forced a lightness I didn't feel into my tone. "Well - whatever your terrible reasons are for disagreeing with me, I can wait a day to pull them to shreds."

A sad smile touched Edward's lips and he brought his hand to my face. I obviously wasn't fooling him. "It's the principle, Isobel, not because I don't selfishly want to keep you with me for - well, for the rest of my existence."

The bands around my chest seemed to loosen just a little. No matter my fears, that _did_ sound like an Edward kind of reason for trying to force me to remain human and mortal. And - he understood exactly what my problem was without me needing to say a word. "I love you," I told him, and only added _you idiot_ silently.

"You are my life," he responded with simple sincerity.

And obviously, _because_ I was his life, he was going to resign himself to my death.

I sighed.

Our phones both buzzed, then, which was probably good timing - which meant, with equal probability, that it was Alice texting us.

My guess went from "probable" to "certain" as Edward rolled his eyes and said, raising his voice only slightly, "If you don't want me to ignore you, then don't try to interrupt." Then his voice dropped. "Alice," he told me by way of explanation.

"I gathered," I replied.

"She says that if you don't get up now, you'll manage to weasel out of shopping - her words - and she won't forgive you for at least a week."

Well - we weren't going to talk about the vampire thing yet, and I didn't want the weekend ruined, either. So I laughed - and I also got out of bed.

Edward left while I showered, and then I met him, Alice and Esme in the lobby after I had finished packing up all my things. Esme checked us out while Alice handed me a latte and a bag with a bacon-and-cheese biscuit, and then we went to retrieve the cars.

Alice had two goals in mind: finding a dress style and then looking for the right fabric in the right color for the dress and for me. She knew exactly what she would choose for me, of course, but she still wanted to go through the process - _some_ of the process, anyway. We were only going to one clothing store and then one fabric store, and that was some relief.

The store we went to was on the other side of Lake Washington, so it was a bit of a drive. Alice initially tried to convince me to ride with her and Esme, but Edward growled at her so fiercely that she didn't press the issue. He and I were mostly silent on the way over, exchanging only a few commonplaces, and I could tell he was a bit concerned because of how tightly he held my hand once I had finished eating the biscuit.

Our almost-conversation about me becoming a vampire was still too recent for me to put it aside entirely, though I hoped to do so before we left for home. _That_ drive was too long to be spent in silence, and, to tell the truth, I wasn't any more ready to argue than Edward was. The idea was simply too new. I needed time to consider it from every angle I possibly could before I would know what I _really_ thought.

Though it was certainly true that my first impulse was to insist that immortality - or even semi-immortality - was necessarily superior to mortality. Death, as far as I could see, was the ultimate evil.

Which meant, of course, that I would have to avoid killing anyone else - but surely the Cullens would be able and willing to help me resist my thirst for human blood.

I sighed, and Edward shot me a curious glance. "It's too bad it's cloudy," I deflected quickly, nodding toward the lake. "It's much prettier in the sun."

"Which I can't go out in," Edward reminded me.

"You still need to show me why," I replied.

"It will be easier once there's more sun available," he said - and then we lapsed back into silence.

The boutique Alice had chosen was the clothing equivalent of the restaurant Edward had taken me to the night before. Everything was designer and priced appropriately. "Don't worry," Alice whispered as I undoubtedly turned green after making the mistake of checking a price carefully hand-pinned to a tag on a pair of jeans. Who paid more than three _hundred_ dollars for jeans?! "Esme will buy something. She loves this place."

Alice had three dresses already in mind for me to try on. The first was for Edward's benefit, to demonstrate why I couldn't wear a long skirt. "She would need four inch heels," Alice told him, gesturing to the pool of fabric on the floor.

"You're making the dress. Make the skirt fit," he suggested, but Alice was already shaking her head.

"Her proportions aren't right. _Isobel_ isn't especially short, but proportionally her legs are a little shorter than average for her height."

"I'm right _here_ , you know," I complained, rolling my eyes.

Alice patted my arm either to comfort or hush me. "It's just the truth," she said, but I couldn't actually tell if she was talking to me or Edward.

"Isobel is lovely," Esme chimed in, "but her _particular_ beauty can't be highlighted with this _particular_ style."

They were still talking about me like I wasn't there, but I blushed at Esme's compliment anyway.

"Whatever you think is best," Edward sighed.

The second dress was _also_ for Edward's benefit - or...maybe not _benefit_. Alice's expression could only be described as _bloodthirsty_ , and the tune she was humming was vaguely martial. I got the impression I was being revenge-dressed somehow, even though I didn't know how a pretty, backless dress was supposed to be revenge.

At least - I didn't until I left the dressing room and found Edward already studying the ceiling, a pained look on his face.

Esme gave a little sigh of admiration as Alice forced me to turn. "Oh, Isobel, your skin is _flawless_. If you were a little older, I would say this style is _perfect_ for you."

Yeah - there was no way Charlie would let me out of the house in a backless dress.

Edward made a strangled sound.

"Oh come off it," Alice told him, sounding incongruously triumphant. "You may as well get used to seeing her like this. It won't be winter forever. Soon there will be tank tops. Shorts. _Swimsuits_."

Edward might have whimpered.

Alice cackled like an evil villain as she led me back into the dressing room. "That's what he gets for making me worry last night," she muttered. I could only assume she meant me to hear, but didn't seem to require a response.

The last dress was the _serious_ one. Alice had insisted on bringing the wedges I had been borrowing from the car and now made me put them on, even though I had gone out barefoot in the first two dresses. After helping me into the dress and zipping me up, she began twisting my hair up into a simple knot while I stared at myself in the mirror.

I... _liked_ this dress.

It made me feel... _pretty_.

I shouldn't have liked it. It was short (which usually brought to the forefront my fear that if I fell, it would be utterly and spectacularly humiliating) and the embroidered pattern was much too loud for my taste. But - the cut was simple and somehow elegant: sleeveless, with a high neck, a band of black fabric marking the waist, and an A-line skirt that I might have described as _flirty_ if I were in the habit of describing _anything_ as "flirty."

"I _knew_ you'd love it," Alice smirked, catching sight of my expression in the mirror.

"Is it - is it too, er, simple for a dance?" I asked, uncertain whether "simple" was the word I wanted.

"Mmm, no, but it's edging on too _casual_ ," Alice replied. "I mean, _this_ dress would work just fine simply because it looks _so_ _good_ on you. But when we pick out fabrics, we'll look for something that implies 'evening' a little more forcefully."

"Oh," I said. "Okay."

She finished with my hair and turned me around to look at her, showing her approval of what she saw with a squeal and a series of excited bounces. "You," she told me, "are going to be my _masterpiece_."

Her _masterpiece_? Seriously? "Not Rosalie?" I asked, my voice heavy with irony.

"Rose is too easy," Alice informed me. "She looks spectacular in _anything_. You, though - you are going to give her a serious run for her money, and it's going to be because I am _brilliant_."

I didn't really know how to respond to that - either the absurdity of me competing with Rosalie on looks _or_ the (correct) implication that I wouldn't be able to do so without some kind of miracle - so I let her usher me out to the others.

Neither of them did anything to puncture Alice's bubble of self-satisfied joy. "Oh, Alice," Esme breathed. "Did I say that other dress was perfect? I was _so wrong_."

Alice giggled and bounced.

Edward didn't say anything. He was too busy staring.

With his mouth open.

And it didn't look like he was breathing.

Alice and Esme discussed the fit of the dress - how it made my legs look longer because of the way the skirt began just below my natural waist and ended well above my knees, and how something-or-other about cut played up my modest curves. I half-listened and watched Edward trying to gather his wits.

"Alice," he said at last as she and Esme were finally running out of details to enthuse over. I didn't catch the rest of what he said - it was too low and fast for me to decipher.

Alice and Esme both nodded, though, and Alice stepped away from me, gesturing towards Esme. "I'll show you the dress you're going to want," she said.

And then they left, heading back toward the front of the store.

Edward rose, taking a deep breath as he did so, and came closer. He reached out and touched my arm carefully, running his cold fingers up to my shoulder.

"What are you doing?" I asked, becoming increasingly self-conscious as he continued to stare - especially now that I didn't have Alice and Esme as a buffer.

"I...can't quite believe you're real," he admitted. "My memory is supposed to be perfect. How is it, then, that you can keep surprising me with your beauty? I'm afraid that perhaps I'm actually dreaming."

Or _maybe_ , based on the saccharine crap he kept coming up with, he was trapped in a romance novel. I promised myself that I would laugh at him thoroughly as soon as he stopped looking at me with that completely unfair smolder in his eyes.

His hand on my shoulder moved to cup my face, and he placed his other hand carefully on my waist - and then he was kissing me with gentle reverence.

I didn't even hear Alice return - at least not until she passed us with a " _Jeez_ , you two, get a _room_ ," tossed back over her shoulder.

I would have ignored her, but Edward stepped away from me, retaining only my hand as he led me over to the chairs where he and Esme had been sitting before. I started to take the chair Esme had vacated, and was surprised when he pulled me onto his lap instead. "I thought this was a bad idea - ?" I half-whispered, half-squeaked.

" _I'm_ a bad idea," he muttered in reply, resting his forehead against my shoulder. I was trying to formulate a protest when he sighed. "As little sense as it might make to you, spending last night with you makes situations like this a little more tenable. Which is just as well, because I'm also not certain that I can let you go at the moment."

Those - didn't seem like compatible statements? I shook my head, not understanding, but willing to let it go for the moment. Hey, we had a four hour drive - er, well, two and half to three hour drive, with the way Edward drove - ahead of us. He would have plenty of time to try to explain it.

Esme emerged from the dressing room a moment later, and I felt my eyes widen. "What do you think?" she asked us, spinning around.

By all rights, her dress _should_ have been frumpy. It was black with small white polkadots, slouchy and mostly shapeless, with only a fabric belt around the hips and two thigh-high slits to rescue it.

On Esme, though? It was probably the sexiest thing I had ever seen. The way she stood - the way she moved - the way the fabric moved _around_ her - made anyone observing her less aware of the dress than the fact that, underneath it, there was a _body_. A shapely, undoubtedly beautiful-in-the-way-only-a-vampire-could-be-beautiful body. That, and - well, somehow the slightly rumpled air of the dress was _suggestively_ rumpled rather than _sloppily_ rumpled.

"You look _amazing_ ," I told her.

"Carlisle will definitely approve," Alice added, and then giggled. "At least, if he has time to _register_ approval before he pulls it off of you."

Esme smiled, looking embarrassed, but said, "That _does_ sound promising."

"Alright, Edward," Alice said, a moment later as Esme turned away from the mirror with a satisfied sigh, "Esme will go change again, but then you're going to have to let Isobel go."

His arms tightened around my waist, but he growled out an "I know."

"Are you okay?" I asked, twisting around to look at him.

He leaned in and kissed my neck. "Yes, I'm fine - Alice just hasn't forgiven me yet for last night, and so she's going out of her way to irritate me. Isobel," he continued thoughtfully, "how would you feel about _not_ going to the dance?"

How would I feel about _getting out_ of going to the dance? Um...try _amazing_? "I wouldn't mind at all," I told him carefully, trying not to make my glee _too_ obvious.

Edward put his fingers on my jaw, turning my head so I would look at him. "Are you certain?"

I nodded.

A rueful note entered his voice. "And - are you still certain if the reason I don't want to go is that I don't want anyone else to see how beautiful you are?"

I laughed at him. "While that _is_ a terrible reason, I think I'm still totally fine with the outcome."

His tone became even more rueful. "Will you be the one to defend our decision to Alice?"

Damn - that plan had been so promising. "No way. She's _your_ sister," I answered immediately. Humans couldn't stop tornadoes, even tiny ones, bare-handed. I wasn't about to try.

He sighed. "That's precisely the point. I have to _live_ with her."

"And he's already testing my patience," Alice said. She and Esme had emerged from the dressing room without me hearing them. Alice held out her hand to me and I rose somewhat reluctantly, with Edward releasing me still more reluctantly. "You're going to the dance," she told us.

"I would be very disappointed if you didn't," Esme added, glancing at both of us, but mostly looking at Edward.

"You need to learn to take pleasure in the envy of others," Alice counseled him. "After all, Isobel will be there with _you_. Everyone might be _looking_ at her, but - "

"I'll be too busy falling down to notice anyway?" I broke in.

Alice made a little _tching_ sound. "Edward won't let you fall. Both of you need to stop worrying so much. I can _promise_ that it will be fun - and I promise even more that I won't make this dress if you're not going to the dance," she added with a sniff.

"That's not true," Edward grumbled at her.

"Well - I won't let you see it," she amended quickly. "Isobel, Rose, Esme and I will go out together, which would be infinitely worse for you than just going to the dance with her. At least at the dance you'll be _with_ her."

I opened my mouth to protest, but Alice cut me off with a swift pat on the arm. "No, hush. You _will_ go because I'll promise you don't have to dance with _anyone_ , _and_ I'll get you tickets to something you'll like. Don't doubt my persuasive powers, Isobel - I am the _queen_ of persuasion."

"The queen of _bribery_ ," Edward growled.

"Bribery is just one of my many, _many_ tools," Alice retorted.

Even though nothing had actually been decided - out loud, anyway - Alice seemed satisfied and led me back to the dressing room. I supposed that meant that Edward and I _were_ going to the dance.

Thankfully shopping didn't last too much longer. Alice disappeared with the dress once she had helped me out of it, and once I had finished changing it was time to go to the fabric store. That was a quick stop - Alice already knew what she was going to choose, didn't want me to know, and was soon a little bit annoyed at my inability to tell the difference between different types of silks or, like - organza and something else I couldn't remember the name of.

It wasn't long before she sent me home with Edward, her air that of a long-suffering martyr.

"Alice isn't _really_ upset at me, is she?" I asked Edward as he opened my door so I could get into the car.

He shrugged and made a complicated expression - half grimace and half tolerant smile. "A little - but she'll be fine. Alice has trouble understanding why everyone isn't interested in all the same things she's interested in, especially when she's excited." He rolled his eyes expressively.

"Did she try to interest you in fashion?" I asked, sensing a story.

"Yes," he sighed, "but she becomes more _consistently_ annoyed over my differing aesthetics with regards to deep-sea fauna."

"Differing...aesthetics?" I repeated, not understanding.

Edward smiled wryly at me over the door between us. "I don't agree that wolffish, anglerfish, fangtooth fish, vampire squid, and viperfish - among other, unnamed but equally unnattractive species - are 'cute.'"

"Ah," I said, uncertain that I knew all of those fish, but getting the general picture.

Edward gestured for me to get in, and then went around to the driver's side, and in a moment we were on the road and headed home.

"So…" I began as he followed signs to the highway.

He glanced at me when I didn't immediately continue, looking a little wary.

"It's not the vampire thing," I reassured him. "I'm just trying to work out - I mean, I thought spending the night together was - not a _risk_ , exactly, but…"

Edward grunted. "Mated vampires spend a lot of time together," he told me. "At times they might part ways for short periods if it's absolutely necessary, but living apart is…" he frowned, "unthinkable, really." The smile he flashed me was grim. "I may be the only one who has ever tried it."

"Why is it different for me?" I asked. "You're my mate, too, but even though I never _like_ leaving you, it's not - like a huge deal." I caught sight of his expression. "Sorry," I added.

"I can't answer that with certainty, Isobel," he sighed. "As far as I know, I'm _also_ the only one who has tried," he glanced at me, " _this_. I _do_ have guesses," he continued. "If you would like to hear them."

I nodded.

"I think the most likely explanation is that you spend the majority of your time away from me sleeping."

"Oh," I replied, "I suppose that does kinda make sense." I spent a moment reflecting, and then asked: "Did you know that things would be easier for you if you were spending nights with me?"

"I suspected," he admitted.

"Then why didn't you - " I began, before stopping myself. "No," I sighed, "I know why you didn't ask. But you _should_ have, Edward."

"After last time - " he started to say, even though I'd just said I knew.

"You didn't _ask_ last time," I interrupted.

He glanced at me, smiling wryly. "Yes, but last time was traumatizing - for both of us."

"I guess staying also means you're, you know, _with_ me, which probably feels dangerous to you even when it makes you less dangerous," I grumbled. "I mean, I'm _assuming_ it makes you less dangerous. To me."

"Mmm, that's an irony I hadn't considered," he agreed, tacitly conceding that my assumption was correct. He caught my hand and kissed it. "Thank you for offering. My nights suddenly seem less bleak."

I sighed and _didn't_ point out again that they could have been less bleak _days_ ago.

When I looked at Edward, though, he was smirking. "What?" I asked.

"I'm going to spend tonight with you," he said, his smirk morphing into a full-on grin.

"You'll have to sneak in after Charlie goes to bed," I warned him. "I might be asleep, too. I'll leave the window cracked open for you, though."

My caveats didn't seem to bother him - he kissed my hand again and asked me where I wanted to grab lunch, since it was nearing that time and there wasn't much between Seattle and Forks. I didn't really care, so he just took me to a deli for a sandwich and then, as we got back on the road, told me that if I didn't have any other big questions about vampires, I could plug in his phone and find some music for us to listen to. He actually had a bunch of his own compositions saved on his phone - he said listening to them sometimes helped him work out things that should be changed - so I quickly made a playlist of them and we listened to it for the rest of the drive back to Forks. We didn't talk much since I was trying to concentrate on his music, but we had a few brief conversations when he wanted to explain something that he didn't feel worked or I was curious about a composition. I thought Edward seemed, and probably was, embarrassed that I was listening to his music so intently - and with him right there - and maybe regretted a little that he had ever given me his phone, but I really enjoyed it.

"I want copies of these," I told him as he used our entry into Forks as an excuse to turn the volume down. It should only have been mid-afternoon, but the bright spot that indicated where the sun was behind the clouds was already getting low in the sky. Winter days were so short this far north.

An expression perilously close to horror flitted across Edward's face. "I need to make new recordings," he protested. "These are on my phone because they aren't _right_."

"Am I killing you a little by making you listen to imperfect compositions?" I asked, trying not to laugh at him.

He growled something that might - or might not - have been a denial.

"Do you want to put your bookshelf together tonight?" he asked, changing the subject before I could tease him any more.

It was my turn to make a face. "Yes, but I still have a couple of school-related things that I should do. There's that test in Spanish next week...and, you know, that was kind of my worst class when we weren't speaking."

He nodded, giving my hand a sympathetic squeeze as he turned the corner onto my street. "Alright then, love. I won't stay - just carry the shelves in fo - " he stopped abruptly as he stared out the windshield in the direction of my house.

"What?" I asked, looking around.

That was when I noticed that Simone and my dad's cruiser weren't the only vehicles pulled up at our house. The van Billy and Jake drove was there, too.

" _Shit_ ," Edward swore, his hands flexing dangerously on the steering wheel. It was, I thought irrelevantly, possibly the first time I had heard him say anything worse than "damn."

"What's wrong?" I demanded, torn between hoping that Jacob was just thinking something stupid about me and hoping that it absolutely wasn't that.

Edward closed his eyes. "I'll give you your shelves tomorrow after school," he said, and then opened them again to give me a stern look. "Don't go in - Jacob is watching for you. He'll explain."

I caught his hand. "But Edward - what's _wrong_?"

His hand slipped from mine, but he used it to touch my hair instead. "This relates to my family and they need to know about it. Jacob won't require much urging to tell you everything."

Edward was _telling_ me to spend time with Jake? _Alone_? It _had_ to be bad. "They're - the Quileutes - they're not going to tell everyone you're vampires, are they?" Because - I mean, no one would believe that, right?

Thankfully, Edward shook his head. "It isn't that bad - yet." His fingers found their way to my cheek and he leaned over the console to kiss me. "Go find your friend. I'll return later tonight," he said as he retreated to his side of the car.

I didn't want him to go, but there wasn't anything else to do. And - he _would_ come later. Whether or not I was awake - well, it was comforting just to think about having him near me while I slept. I was certain, somehow, that I would sleep better for it.

I got out of the car, watching as he turned around neatly in spite of the narrow street, and gave him one last wave as he drove away. Then, with nothing else to do, I turned toward the house, trying to settle my overnight bag more comfortably on my shoulder. I couldn't tell whether the clouds were getting thicker or whether evening was just coming on _this_ fast, but the living room window was already lit.

Jake _must_ have been watching for me, because he stepped out the door as I stepped onto the little patio in front of it.

"Isobel," he said nervously. Light and sound spilled out after him - no shouting, but tense, heated voices. I couldn't quite pick out the words. "Uh - you don't want to go in there."

"Why not?" I asked, trying to sound innocent - like I _hadn't_ been clued in by my mind-reading vampire boyfriend. "What's going on?"

He shut the door before answering, his expression grim. "It's...difficult to explain."

"Tribal stuff?" I guessed.

He looked a little startled, but gave a sharp nod. "I don't even know where to start," he confessed.

"How about we start with going somewhere else?" I suggested, trying not to sigh. So much for studying.

"Yeah, okay," he agreed a little reluctantly, glancing back at the house. "That's - not going to be finished anytime soon. But, uh - nowhere with people. If I'm gonna tell you about it - it's not something I want anyone else to hear. It's - I'm not even sure _you'll_ believe it, and - "

"I'll believe it, Jake," I promised. "We're friends." Perhaps more importantly, I had that mind-reading vampire boyfriend, plus an equally vampiric future sister, who also happened to be a psychic - facts which had completely reshaped my capacity for belief. But, you know, I couldn't really say that.

Jake tried to smile at me, and I appreciated the effort - even if it looked more like a grimace.

I led the way toward Simone, and we both got in silently. I set my bag on the seat between us. "So where are we going?" I asked.

"Beach," he said instantly.

"You'll have to give me directions," I replied, starting Simone's engine.

He looked at me like I was nuts, at least momentarily shaken from his gloomy thoughts. "I need to give you directions to the _beach_? Haven't you been spending some of your summers here or whatever?"

"Your beaches are cold, even during the summer," I retorted. "Besides, there are _a lot_ of beaches around. How the hell am I supposed to know which one you want?"

"Uh, not that many you can _drive_ to, and it's going to be dark too soon even for _me_ to want to go hiking. _You_ would kill yourself."

"First Beach, then?" I asked, ignoring the jab.

He shook his head. "Nah, like I said - I don't wanna see anyone. Rialto is more out of the way."

"You'll have to give me directions," I repeated with exaggerated patience, and was rewarded with an equally exaggerated eye-roll.

Half-joking irritation seemed better to me than whatever he'd been feeling before, so I made sure we spent most of the drive over bickering about my taste in temperature and recreation.

Jake fell silent as I parked - an unhappy silence - and was instantly climbing out of Simone's cab when we came to a full stop. I followed more reluctantly - it was a cold, rainy very-nearly-evening, and windy out here near the shore. I zipped up my coat and pulled my hood over my hair as I followed him out onto the rocky beach, picking my way carefully to avoid spraining an ankle. Thankfully he didn't go too far, but stopped at the top of a low rise, looking out over the ocean - what he could see of it through the rain and slowly dimming light, anyway.

We were both silent for a little bit, listening to the waves crash against the shore.

"I saw a wolf," he said abruptly.

It took me a moment to contextualize what he was saying. "During your ritual fasting thing?" I asked, uncertain whether this was what I was supposed to disbelieve. I mean, he'd _said_ there were no wolves on the Olympic Peninsula, but it seemed like a pretty stinking big place to me, with a lot of stinking thick forest, and pinning down where wild animals were and weren't was...sometimes difficult.

His head jerked - a nod.

"What...was it doing?" I asked lamely when he didn't continue.

"She," he corrected me. " _She_ just walked by - close enough for me to touch."

I was wondering if he could tell a female wolf from a male wolf just from looking, if it was completely obvious (I hadn't spent much time around wolves, but if they were as much like dogs as they seemed, it wouldn't be _that_ obvious), or if he had some kind of mystical connection to wolves, when he answered the question without me having to ask it: "She had pups with her. Two. And - "

"And?" I prompted a little impatiently.

"A mountain lion cub," Jake whispered. "I - I thought it was albino at first, but it must've been the light. It looked at me and it had...these enormous yellow eyes. She was - the mother wolf - she had adopted it, I guess."

That seemed - unusual. But, I mean, not _completely_ unheard of. Animals adopting the young of other species was way more normal in captivity, where they were usually introduced precisely for that purpose, but it did sometimes happen in the wild. Baboons had a whole _thing_ where they stole wild dog puppies and raised them as guard dogs for their troops.

In the context of what Jake had been doing, though? I imagined it _meant_ something. I could even come up with some things it might mean, but I was operating from a different cultural context.

"I'm guessing seeing a wolf is a _huge_ deal. What about the lion cub?" I asked.

Jake and I weren't touching, but I still felt him tense beside me. "That's not for me to interpret," he growled. "It's for the elders. My dad. Harry. A couple others. They say - " His voice was anguished. "They say it means the Cullens are planning to take on a new family member. Turn someone."

"Me," I sighed.

Suddenly Jake was in motion. He bent and picked up a fist-sized rock at his feet, hurling it as far as he could toward the ocean with a yell of frustration. Even though we were pretty far back, I heard it splash into the water.

"Nice throw," I told him.

"This is so _stupid_!" he shouted at the water. He turned to face me, his eyes hot with fury. "They're _wrong_. Do you know how I know?"

I shook my head.

"In all our stories - in everything about the original Cullens and Ephraim Black - the wolves represent _us_." He hit his own chest with his fist. "They're _our_ brothers. Not the - " He broke off to bend and pick up several more rocks, throwing one to punctuate each of his next points. "Not the _fucking_ Cullens! Not _any_ of you! Us! We're. The. Fucking. Wolves."

I reached out and put my hand on his arm as he stood, the rocks all thrown, seething.

"My dad and the other elders are so blinded by their hatred for the Cullens that they're… they're throwing away every tradition - every story - everything that makes us... _us_." He turned his head to look at me and there were tears in his eyes. "Do you have any idea how much that hurts, Isobel?" His voice broke on my name, going high.

I shook my head again. How could I? In his defeat, though, Jake suddenly looked so young - like a kid who had gotten separated from his parents on the beach with evening closing in. He was only a year younger than me - but all at once it was a huge difference.

Without even really meaning to, I found myself slipping my arm around his waist - and then I was holding him as he rested his head on my shoulder and sobbed.

I was a little surprised by how upset he was - but then I supposed I also wasn't. Jake's life hadn't been easy. Five years ago he'd lost his mom. Two years ago his dad had been disabled. And his sisters - I didn't want to judge them too harshly. I couldn't know how things had been for them. But - Jake was still a kid, left alone to take care of his dad. I kind of understood how that felt, even though Renee had never been physically disabled - just, you know, pretty unpredictable and really overly emotional. Having to take care of her had still...kinda sucked.

Sometimes.

And...Charlie had said that Jake had a connection to this place, to his people. It didn't seem like a huge stretch to think that having a vision, or experience, or whatever, and then having it interpreted for him in a way he didn't agree with at all - yeah, okay, I could kind of see how that would be awful.

I gave him a little squeeze and reached up to stroke his hair, and he responded by holding me closer and crying harder.

God - hadn't there been anyone to comfort him all these years? This kind of outpouring of grief didn't seem like it was over just one thing. It seemed like the sort of thing that had built up because he couldn't express it.

I looked up at the sky. It was really getting dark now. Soon I would try to coax Jacob back to Simone, where it was at least dry and sheltered from the wind. Maybe he would want to talk. For now, though - I just held him and let him cry.

We were friends, after all, and it seemed like the least I - or _anyone_ \- could do for him.

I just didn't know why _anyone_ hadn't done it before now.


End file.
